Some movement on Cook County budget

Once again, Cook County Board President Todd Stroger and the eight commissioners who favor his budget could not round up a ninth vote to pass a tax increase Monday.

But there were signs of movement.

Commissioner Roberto Maldonado said he would agree to a quarter-point sales-tax increase if Stroger and his band of eight would back his proposals: five taxes he sees as less regressive measures.

Those include a tax on jet fuel, a tax on heavy sport-utility vehicles, a tax on alcohol served in bars, a quarter-point increase in the use tax and a 1 percent tax on hotels.

Collectively, those five taxes would raise $73 million for the remainder of 2008 and $142 million in 2009, Maldonado said Monday.

A quarter-point increase in the sales tax would raise an additional $16 million for this year and $106 million in 2009, said the county's Chief Financial Officer Donna Dunnings.

Stroger says there is a shortfall in the budget of $280 million. However, that "shortfall" is between the current revenues and his proposal for next year's budget, which adds roughly 1,000 employees compared to the 2007 budget.

"I can go up to a quarter," Maldonado told the Daily Herald Monday afternoon, before the 1 p.m. board meeting. That is conditioned upon his taxes passing, however, he added.

Previously, Maldonado said he would not support any sales-tax increase, but Monday he said he was making the offer "in a spirit of compromise."

The quarter-point increase would be low enough to not seriously affect the senior citizens and poor in his district, he said.

Stroger, however, says a quarter-point isn't good enough. He had originally requested a 2 percentage-point increase and has since lowered that to a 1.25 percentage point increase.

Stroger and Maldonado were seen huddling together during the board meeting but apparently did not come to a compromise. Both Maldonado and Joan Murphy, who is advancing the sales-tax proposal for Stroger, asked that a vote on their proposals be deferred until another meeting Wednesday.

By law, the board must pass a balanced budget by Friday. If it does not, it faces a constitutional crisis as to whether it can expend any funds at all.

In other county news, Stroger said Health Bureau Chief Robert Simon would be repaying the county for the gas he expenses to drive home in a county car to Michigan every weekend, where he lives with his family. The issue was raised by the Sun-Times in Monday's editions.

County hospital spokesman Sean Howard said Simon has actually been saving the county money because the position used to be allotted a driver and Simon eliminated that position when he took over.