In the span of just four weeks, Mayor Rahm Emanuel has made a concerted push toward resolving three crucial issues that could determine whether he’s able to rehabilitate himself enough to run for re-election.
He ceded considerable ground to the Chicago Teachers Union on who pays for their pensions, but avoided another destabilizing teachers strike.
He ushered through a significant new tax on water and sewer bills, capping a series of tax increases to shore up long-neglected government worker pension systems.
And he put forth a plan to hire hundreds more cops and improve police training and oversight, a long-in-the-making attempt to gain control over a major surge in street violence amid a federal investigation of the Chicago Police Department.
In case Chicagoans hadn’t connected the dots, Emanuel tried to do it for them Tuesday in a budget speech that outlined what progress he’s made while sounding a strong we’ve-turned-the-corner theme.
“Five years ago, Chicago was on the financial brink,” Emanuel declared from his City Council chamber podium, a half-filled bottle of sparkling mineral water at his side. “Today, Chicago is back on solid ground.”
In perhaps a nod to lessons he’s acknowledged learning about softening his pugnacious governing style, Emanuel afterward downplayed the suggestion that his latest speech was the beginning of a pivot toward a third term — a path sources close to him privately say he’d like to pursue.
“My point is while we face some very big challenges ahead, you can take a lesson learned collectively, out of the fiscal, out of the pension, out of the educational, that we can tackle the issue of public safety,” Emanuel said of his speech. “I’ll make a decision as it relates to my future when the time is right. This was about the budget.”
At the same time, Emanuel told the Chicago Tribune he has “every intention of running again,” strengthening the notion that he might not be done with city politics yet as a host of would-be contenders jockey in the background ahead of the February 2019 election. Still, Emanuel insisted a for-sure decision won’t come until a dinner down the road with Amy Rule, his wife and first lady.
In the meantime, voters get to ponder that Chicago’s more solid financial ground has come mostly at their expense. The Justice Department has yet to finish its investigation and issue its recommendations to reform the Police Department. And the teachers union, long supported by Chicagoans over Emanuel at a 3-to-1 clip in opinion polls, lingers as a source of election season headwinds.
Teachers contract
For the better part of a year, Emanuel and Forrest Claypool, his Chicago Public Schools CEO, had insisted that as part of any new contract with the Chicago Teachers Union, their current members would have to start paying significantly more toward their pensions.
That didn’t happen.
Instead, Emanuel and Claypool abandoned their pursuit of making current teachers absorb the so-called pension pickup — the 7 percent of teachers’ required 9 percent contribution toward their retirement that CPS has covered for decades. Teachers hired after Jan. 1, however, would have to pay the full amount.
Emanuel also gave in on his long-held resistance to setting aside any more money from the city’s tax increment financing districts for CPS, providing a total of $87.5 million. The mayor had dismissed the surpluses that accumulate in the special taxing districts as one-time money and criticized challenger Jesus “Chuy” Garcia’s calls during the last mayoral campaign to tap the money left over in the accounts for schools.
For his part, Emanuel argued he secured smaller raises for teachers — including no retroactive pay increase for the last year that teachers haven’t had a contract and no raises next year followed by a 2 percent pay increase in 2018 and 2.5 percent boost in 2019. The mayor suggested the smaller pay raises and changes to teachers’ health care costs offset what CPS would have saved had teachers been required to pay more toward their pensions and the additional TIF money the city ponied up, though he did not provide figures to back up the assertion.
Amid the contract negotiations and 2012 strike, teachers received higher pay raises but Emanuel also managed to lengthen the school day and school year, overhaul how teachers and principals were evaluated and make alterations in the payout of sick days, among other changes.
Asked if he made more concessions in this teachers contract than the last one, Emanuel responded, “No. I actually think they are complementary.”
Emanuel started his budget speech Tuesday by assuring Chicagoans that the time had come to turn the page on the hard-fought talks with teachers. He followed that up by touting classroom improvements at CPS and the City Colleges of Chicago, a nod to his narrative of labor peace and educational progress.
“Both sides worked in good faith to reach a good deal, and as a result, Chicago’s students are in class today where they belong, getting an excellent education from dedicated and very capable teachers here in Chicago,” Emanuel said of the tentative deal he struck with the teachers union late Monday night. “Chicago Public School finances will be on stronger, firmer ground because of this agreement.”
City finances
Emanuel spent much of his Tuesday speech emphasizing that Chicago’s woeful budget times were coming to an end, noting how two Wall Street rating agencies have changed the city’s financial outlook from negative to stable.
Key to that newfound stability have been the numerous tax and fee increases Emanuel has pushed through to increase payments toward the pensions of police officers, firefighters, municipal workers and laborers.
“For the first time in a long time, all four Chicago pensions have dedicated and reliable revenue sources and new city employees will share responsibility for funding their benefits,” Emanuel said. “Our city is finally out of the pension penalty box.”
While the mayor cast the retirement systems as “on the path to solvency,” financial analysts — including those at the Wall Street debt rating agencies he cited — have cautioned that the long-term forecast for those funds is uncertain.
Over the next five years, Emanuel has proposed using more than $800 million a year from new property, 911 and water and sewer taxes, along with other city revenue, to increase contributions to the four pension funds. But the city might have to come up with hundreds of millions of dollars more in the sixth year, well beyond the end of the mayor’s current term.
How the city would come up with that money has not been decided.
“There is very much a question of how the city — even next year — how the pension funds perform, whether the five-year ramp will be sufficient to keep those funds stable,” said Laurence Msall, president of the nonpartisan Civic Federation budget watchdog group.
In an appearance before the Tribune Editorial Board, Emanuel said he has committed to making the required payments — a stark contrast from his predecessors — and defended his funding plans as the most he could do without harming city economic growth.
During his speech, Emanuel noted an effort to spend more money for additional police officers, mentoring programs, summer jobs and public art installations — efforts he’s said are possible because of the city’s improving financial condition.
Bronzeville Ald. Pat Dowell, 3rd, said she noticed Emanuel’s new tone.
“I think the broad parameters the mayor laid out are fine, where the dark cloud, as he mentioned, has lifted and now we need to do the things we need to take care of in Chicago, like the need for more police, investment in our school system, the children, to make Chicago a better city,” Dowell said. “I felt that.”
Ald. Ariel Reboyras, 30th, said the fact the city has emerged from the tough tax increase votes for pensions and other budget decisions is what allowed Emanuel to look ahead more.
“He’s basically saying we’re done with the really difficult times in the city of Chicago, because if you look back, we were headed in the wrong direction in years past, a year ago, actually,” Reboyras said. “But we’re actually headed in the right direction now.”
Police and politics
While Emanuel spent Tuesday declaring substantial progress on City Hall and CPS finances, he also acknowledged the grim reality of Chicago’s struggles with violent crime. With nearly three months still to go in 2016, Chicago has already topped 530 homicides and 3,250 shootings, both far more than in all of 2015.
“Now, let us find that courage to tackle another hard and bitter truth. When teenagers gun each other down for no good reason — and there is never a good reason — when neighborhoods and residents live in fear of gangs and lock their doors and call their kids in from outside, when people in one part of Chicago ignore, avoid or drive around another part of Chicago, we as a city must stop, step up and confront this challenge,” Emanuel said. “Improving public safety is an urgent need for the city — and it is an especially urgent need for our neighborhoods on the South and West sides.”
Much as he did during a recent speech on policing, the mayor laid out his strategy to spend millions for more officers and better training. Emanuel also hit another familiar theme, saying he’d seek more economic development in struggling neighborhoods — a criticism he faced during last year’s election.
The mayor detailed his plan as the Justice Department continues to investigate the Police Department’s use of force. It’s an investigation Emanuel initially resisted in the wake of the Laquan McDonald police shooting scandal that has left white officer Jason Van Dyke charged with murder after shooting the black teenager 16 times in the street.
Now, Emanuel is trying to get ahead of the federal civil rights investigation by spending more on the department and working to overhaul civilian oversight of the city’s cops.
With a plan he can now point to, Emanuel has been able to start making the case that he’s working to address a lack of trust between African-American residents with the Police Department and City Hall. It’s what spurred allegations of Emanuel covering up a police dashboard-camera video of the McDonald shooting and led to weeks of street protests and calls for his resignation.
After Tuesday’s speech, Emanuel said he made it a point to highlight what he presented as success in other areas as a way to establish citywide confidence in moving past the policing controversies.
“The reason I spoke the way I spoke and the speech I gave is to muscle and muster the energy to take on future challenges and to take stock that you can make a difference. It’s not a linear line. It’s not problem, solved,” he said. “It’s when you focus together — private, public, not-for-profit together with the city, you can put your thumb on the scale and tip in a way that you have better outcomes and results for people. That’s how I look at it.”
While considerable challenges remain for Emanuel, Downtown Ald. Brendan Reilly said he thought it was “appropriate for the mayor to detail some of his successes.”
“We’ve had to endure a string of very difficult and painful budgets over the last several years to get to this point, so you need to provide context and I think that’s what the mayor has done,” said Reilly, 42nd. “I don’t know that the mayor declared victory on any one of our major issues. I think he’s declaring progress, and I think in most areas in his speech, he can take credit for making progress.”
Asked if he considered Emanuel more likely to pursue a third term now, Reilly demurred and referred to the mayor’s ongoing campaign fundraising as “things any mayor does day to day as a political being.”
Emanuel ended June with $545,000 in his main campaign fund and has collected $412,500 since then.
Ald. Patrick O’Connor, Emanuel’s floor leader, said progress aside, the mayor still has plenty to tackle. The mayor’s close City Council ally also brushed aside Emanuel’s politically calculating reputation and suggested he’s not thinking about his next election.
“I’ve got to tell you, I think that is probably the furthest thing from his mind. He’s had a year that’s been fairly intense so far, with a lot of major issues,” O’Connor said. “I think he’s truly just trying to make sure that we’re on the right path. I don’t think that this speech is the opening shot of a re-election bid. I think, in his heart of hearts, if you asked him if he’s running again, he truly wouldn’t know.”
And besides, O’Connor said, if Emanuel has learned anything from the past year, it’s that political fortunes can rise — and fall — quickly.
“There are ebbs and flows to popularity. There are ebbs and flows to crisis,” O’Connor said. “Who know what the crisis of the day is going to be a year from now or two years from now?”
Chicago Tribune’s John Byrne and Hal Dardick contributed.
