Revenue Rank: 4
Form of Government: Mayor-Council
Mayor: Richard M. Daley (took office 1989)
City Council: 50 members, elected by ward
FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT: B
Chicago’s financial analysts run a tight ship, with a close eye on expenditures. The city goes to extremes to avoid future problems. Take, for example, its gutsy decision to raise taxes this year — during good economic times. Projections indicated that a tax increase would be necessary in years to come, and it was argued that a smaller tax increase now would offset a larger one later.
In a similarly conservative vein, the city’s investment portfolio avoids booming industries that could fall apart without notice. “We focus on stability,” says Craig Lesner, the chief fiscal policy analyst.
The city is focusing more on its investments, debating new means for oversight. Miriam Santos, the elected city treasurer, was sentenced to 40 months in prison last year as a result of charges that she had threatened to cut off business with key Chicago bankers unless they contributed to her campaign for state attorney general in 1998.
One other potential problem: Chicago has no rainy day fund. City officials cite regulations requiring a balanced budget as the reason they don’t need one. But last January, when three feet of snow fell in two days, more resources were needed to handle the situation than had been budgeted for the entire year. This is just what rainy day funds (or, in this case, snowy day funds) are for.
HUMAN RESOURCES: C-
Chicago’s personnel operations are slowed by a circumstance beyond the city’s control: the 1977 Shakman federal court decree that places rigid controls on hiring in an attempt to erase the old evils of patronage. The controls were well intentioned, but they are not very efficient. Shakman requires a 14-day advertising process before a department can even look at applications, and then it must interview a set number of qualified candidates — often 10 — whether that many good prospects exist or not. “It is a real legal constraint,” says personnel commissioner Glenn Carr. “It creates very serious problems for all departments.”
Shakman is not the only problem. Chicago has an unwieldy collection of 1,772 job titles — a lot more than most other large cities. It also has a pay system that’s not geared toward recognizing performance. Beyond a yearly increase of 5 percent, which most workers get, the only way to reward an excellent employee with cash is to audit the position or push through a promotion.
Training, however, is a strong point. Training records are maintained on employees, and individual department training reports are issued to enhance productivity. Last year, the city launched an intensive training program for middle managers, called the “Mayor’s Management Institute,” in coordination with DePaul University.
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: B-
Chicago has been saddled with sub-par information technology that relies on multiple systems to provide a hodgepodge of data to managers. But this is being replaced by a unitary ERP (for enterprise resource planning) system that should catapult city government into the 21st century. Rollout will begin this fall.
Chicago’s five-year strategic planning effort is strong. It utilizes input from an IT steering committee that includes representatives from every city department. As a result of the planning process, a city database has been created, allowing departments to share information on property, objects and companies and to be certain they are referring to the same record.
The city has outsourced the support of network and desktop services to Unisys. This arrangement appears successful so far, and customer satisfaction surveys are planned.
CAPITAL MANAGEMENT: B+
Every piece of correspondence sent out by the city of Chicago carries a logo that reads “Building Chicago Together.” City officials say this symbolizes Mayor Daley’s attention toward using capital assets to “make the city more visibly pleasing and enable more people to move back from the suburbs.”
Chicago has adequate capital planning, with an emphasis on stakeholder input. The Capital Improvement Advisory Committee, a 15-member group composed of community leaders and professionals in finance, urban planning, engineering and architecture, assists in obtaining public input. The CIAC hosts public hearings at every step of the planning process, and citizens can comment on proposed projects.
The condition of streets and buildings in Chicago is assessed annually. City officials say that for the past two years, street maintenance has been at least equal to need. The budget office prioritizes all building needs; it is not clear how much deferred maintenance currently exists.
MANAGING FOR RESULTS: C+
In the absence of a “master plan” for the city, the mayor himself is the driving force for progress in Chicago — shaping the city to his own vision detail by detail. His staff calls him “the God of Small Things,” a reference to his habit of jotting notes to his employees every time he sees or hears something that could benefit the city.
Many individual agencies and departments do have strategic plans. The mayor’s office informally coordinates the plans, with the mayor offering input along the way. In some cases, several departments join forces in planning on specific subjects, as with the city’s “Violence Prevention Plan,” which was published last September.
Although Chicago’s budget overview includes high-level goals for the city, there are no output or outcome measures associated with them. The city used these measures in previous years but has stopped at present to reconsider their utility. Department heads appear before the city council several times a year to explain their goals and accomplishments.
AVERAGE GRADE: B-
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