Fiscally speaking, Chicago is a “dead man walking,” with no
feasible means to meet existing financial obligations in the near future.
City taxes already are high, and would have to be increased by multiples
in order to pay for pensions (by far the biggest item) and even skeletal city
services in the long run. In the short run, they would be crippling, driving
people and business out even faster.
But there is a lot of money that can be squeezed out of a complex
set of financial flows and assets on a multi-billion-dollar institutional
scale. You can sell off or lease assets like highways, parking garages, and
even the revenue from traffic light cameras and parking meters. Rahm
Emanuel made his “F-U” money in the municipal bond market, don’t forget, so he
has carried
on the tradition of
bleeding the wounded beast through legal means.
But as the Chicago fisc stumbles along on its last legs, the
so-called servants of the public are doing very well, indeed, thank-you very
much.
Michael
Armentraut of the Chicago Sun-Times has done some digging and come up
with a shocking set of numbers revealing how cushy the life gets for a heckuva
lot of people working for the City of Chicago. People who, when they retire,
will be “entitled” to lavish pensions, too. People who will agitate for federal
bailouts that protect those pensions.
More than one of every three Chicago city
workers made $100,000 or more last year — including 36 who topped Mayor Rahm
Emanuel’s $216,210 salary, a Chicago Sun-Times analysis has found.
The number of city workers making more than Emanuel was up from 26
in a similar review by the Sun-Times in 2015. And the
percentage of city employees topping the $100,000 mark is up slightly since
then.
Sounds like more than keeping up with inflation, to me.
Also among the highest-paid was Donald Koplitz, a retired police
sergeant who cashed in on accumulated comp time for a payout of more than a
quarter of a million dollars — three years after he left the Chicago Police
Department.
Here is the payroll
database in its entirety.
Second
City Cop noted the "Best job --- money-wise":
Evidently, the best job in the city nowadays is "undercover
police sergeant" with three of the top ten spots being occupied by that
title.
Rahm's overtime budget is already well over last year and shows no signs of slowing down.
Rahm's overtime budget is already well over last year and shows no signs of slowing down.
Overtime is the principal means of bumping up compensation in the
last years, so as to maximize the basis for the forthcoming pension bonanza,
something that amounts to an extended vacation in many cases. Or the
opportunity for double-dipping and really making a lot of money. Of course,
this bleeds the prey (taxpayers) ever-faster over time.
