I think we all know about Chicago's pension woes. I don't see anything there about this specific program "missing" from the budget though. I work with cities and states pretty extensively, the state of IL is a client as it happens, and it would be exceedingly rare for a public program to exist but not show up on the budget as it's trivial to audit the funds going out versus the budgeted funds. I don't doubt there's plenty of corruption, it just doesn't take the form of an announced program not showing up on a budget. So from just a purely mechanical perspective your comment was a bit baffling.
It's missing (or will be missing) from the Chicago Treasury, not the budget. What's the point of a pilot program if they can't afford it in the long run?
If they can't afford it and then they still do the program regardless if it is successful or not...they then do what they've done with the other program budgets... They run a deficit. In fact, it's not about Chicago... it's really about the state of Illinois itself. It has the worst...a whopping 468.7% Debt ratio: Total Debts/Total Assets The worst in the country. In addition, if I'm not mistaken, it's the only state that has sent four governors to prison for corruption (a total of 6 governors of Illinois have been charged with crimes and then four were convicted...became felons). I don't think any other state will beat that record...maybe New York beats Illinois with the number of convicted governors ? wrbtrader
Ah, now I understand what you were trying to say. If you go back to the entire premise of the concept, it is that it is a better way to deal with poverty than existing programs. That's certainly debatable, but obviously the folks doing it think it will be and hence potentially it could end up costing at worst no more than what they're spending already. And like any pilot, you do it to learn what works and what doesn't, figure out what you didn't know you didn't know, and make decisions on if it's worth pursuing or not. If it comes out a smashing success there are lots of sources of funding outside the traditional city budget and potentially it even helps the city budget, if it fails then you tried something innovative and as any entrepreneur or even a drug developer will tell you, being innovative means you'll fail often. Obviously smart well meaning people can disagree on if it will succeed or fail, but I would rather have innovative people out trying instead of just throwing their hands up and saying they'll just stick with the status quo or worse yet telling people deep in poverty to just take care of themselves.
Don't forget the speaker of the House for 36 of the past 38 years who resigned last year under pressure for blatant corruption that he should be in jail for as well but just isn't yet. That said, Madigan's corruption was a rounding error in the state budget, and most of those governors as well. The real problem is that IL has a long pension tail that comes from producing an outsized chunk of the nation's GDP for the past century. One that a FL, for example, doesn't have. While FL was producing orange juice and needed a couple county sheriffs, firemen, and a handful of teachers in 1970, IL had a big, dense population that needed far more people in public service. They're all retired and drawing pensions now, and to make matters worse many moved to FL where they're spending those pensions so the local economy doesn't even get the benefit of them. While FL is only paying pensions on the relative handful of pubic employees they hired 50 years ago. So it's not an apples to apples comparison between states, and the debt ratio is almost directly proportional to what percentage of GDP a state was producing 50 years ago (except Kentucky, I guess they're just F'd up in general)
Ahhh, yes...Illinois pension tail problem. My old man used to talk about that a lot when we moved from Kentucky to Illinois (Evanston/Chicago area) especially after he retired from the military...we continue keeping our primary residence as Illinois while living abroad... I myself continue doing such to this day. Thus, a lot of income leaves the state. wrbtrader