It was Friday morning and barely a night’s sleep past Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s mayday speech on city finances. Making the rounds for follow-up questions, Lightfoot sat before the Tribune Editorial Board with her budget team and a row of coffee cups.
She wanted to make one thing clear: She is not asking Springfield for a bailout of the city’s dramatically underfunded pension system. She is asking Illinois lawmakers and local officials statewide to attack a pension debacle that’s been building for decades.
“When I hear that (bailout accusation), that’s the thing that gets me animated,” she said, forming a fist. “There are cities and towns all over the state in precisely the same predicament that Chicago is in, whether it’s Cairo, whether it’s Peoria … you mentioned Rockford earlier. The list is long and covers every region of the state.
“And let’s be real,” she added. “Chicago is 80 percent of the state’s economy. As Chicago goes, so goes the state.”
As for the pols who created this crisis …
Where previous Chicago mayors have demurred on pension reform or waited until it was politically safe to discuss, Lightfoot some 100 days into her administration is calling for an everybody-in movement to stabilize state and local retirement systems. She’s correct that municipal governments across Illinois are struggling to keep up with police and fire pension costs. In some communities, it’s a crisis.
In Chicago and Springfield, the politicians whose overpromising, overspending and overborrowing created this mess have tended to dodge pension reforms that would anger labor unions and other favored constituencies. Lightfoot wants Gov. J.B. Pritzker, legislative leaders from both parties, and mayors from around the state to “get real” and attack the pension monster.
Now. Today. Even though doing so means taking political risks.
“I am willing to lead this charge,” she had said during her televised speech Thursday evening. “But I need you to join me. I am going to press everyone involved to make sure that we solve these problems now.”
The ask is there. The willingness to lead is there. Will anyone answer her call to action?
Moving on pensions — or raising property taxes
While Lightfoot is lukewarm toward a constitutional amendment that could bring flexibility to the state’s pension obligations going forward, she doesn’t rule it out. She suggests a statewide dedicated revenue stream to prop up the funds, although she didn’t offer any details. She also wants to further explore the idea of consolidating police and fire pension systems statewide to increase efficiencies and boost investment returns.
And for Chicago, she has not ruled out borrowing by selling pension bonds. That notion, which we oppose, not only would add to City Hall’s already enormous debt burden. It also would create serious risk exposure for city taxpayers. And the scheme could be particularly risky when, sooner or later, the always inevitable next recession arrives.
Lightfoot expects to reveal more specifics about her budget plans in October. How state and city politicians react to her new overtures will determine how draconian those plans will be.
If nobody wants to dance with her and move toward pension solutions, she said, she may have to ask for a hefty property tax increase. “Yes, some of our solutions will be hard. Yes, they may involve putting ourselves at risk. And if it means that I sacrifice myself politically, so be it in pursuit of the right thing,” she said Thursday.
Leveraging credibility and integrity
We’ll see if she can stick to that mantra, disassociating her political fortunes from her policy pursuits. That would be a change from her predecessor, Rahm Emanuel, who carefully weighed his political capital against his day-to-day decision-making at City Hall.
Remember, Lightfoot didn’t run for office on a fix-the-finances platform. She ran — and won nearly three-fourths of the vote — by promising ethics reform, honest government and transparency. Her speech and her plans so far to stabilize city finances aren’t dramatically different than her predecessor’s.
What is different is the person offering them. That matters. By acting swiftly on ethics reform at the City Council, invading the long untouchable territories of aldermanic privilege and outside employment for council members, Lightfoot can make the case that her financial stewardship will be more worthy of trust.
Integrity doesn’t pay the bills. But it does buy benefit of the doubt.
Uplifting Chicago from violence and poverty
Our Friday discussion with Lightfoot went beyond the financial fiasco she inherited. Chicago has impoverished, isolated neighborhoods devastated by gun violence. We’re realistic. No mayor can defeat entrenched gangs and alleviate generations of poverty within months. But early in her tenure it’s fair to assess if Lightfoot has taken the time and made the effort to absorb the realities of Chicago’s shattered communities.
Lightfoot’s responses confirm that she’s meeting an important expectation of Chicagoans: that their mayor isn’t just a denizen of the fifth floor in a downtown government building. She is seeking to grasp the fear and destitution many Chicagoans endure.
“I won’t say that I’m surprised, but I will say the depth of the problem is something I didn’t truly appreciate,” she told us. “When you’re at the ground level and particularly when you see families, children, you look at the housing stock, you drive around the areas and see there is no park, no public spaces that are safe or clean … that’s pretty staggering.”
Her voice caught when she reflected on children she’s met in impoverished, crime-ravaged neighborhoods: “They come to me, cling to me, hug me. Then I get in my car and drive away, and I think: ‘Will I ever see them again? What’s going to happen to them?’ “
Putting more cops on the streets
As a former federal prosecutor and president of the Chicago Police Board, Lightfoot didn’t come into office cold on crime and law enforcement issues. She noted that the pace of shooting incidents and homicides has declined this year. And she said she has “a lot of confidence” in Superintendent Eddie Johnson, whom she didn’t appoint.
But Lightfoot also described Chicago as a city where many mothers are afraid to let their children play outside on a warm summer day. The mayor’s implicit, effective message: No Chicago police chief should be complacent about job security.
The mayor indicated that she thinks Chicago has an appropriately staffed Police Department, with 13,000 members. But she also thinks there are too many specialized units. She wants the force to reallocate personnel to give district commanders the officers they need on the street to deal with unexpected swells of violence. Lightfoot is pressing Chicago Police Department leadership to be more flexible, to demand more from their officers. “I’ve got them all on speed dial,” she said.
‘People elected me to lead.’
Lori Lightfoot took office as an outsider, a first-time candidate with strong credentials as a former law firm partner but limited political experience. That also means she owes nothing to the Democratic machine.
One side effect: She’s been underestimated by the Illinois political apparatchiks and their apologists. The mayor relishes opportunities to catch the old guard trying to school her in their clout-heavy ways of doing business. Witness the speed with which she rammed ethics reforms through a stunned City Council.
“I’m a black woman in America,” Lightfoot said Friday morning, restating her identity as a threat to the status quo ante. “I know who I am. People elected me to lead. They didn’t elect me to become part of the political class.”
A hundred days in, Lightfoot has made a decisive splash as mayor of Chicago. She’s got political capital to spend. In taking a stand on unsustainable pension costs, and seeking to help lead a statewide mission, she’s making an enormous bet.
Lightfoot’s success or failure as mayor is now entwined with pension doomsdays not of her making. We hope she can recruit more reformers in Chicago and across Illinois.
How about it, Springfield?
Editorials reflect the opinion of the Editorial Board, as determined by the members of the board, the editorial page editor and the publisher.
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