Preckwinkle: Budget is first challenge; tax cut comes later
After waging an almost two-year campaign, the easy stuff is over for Toni Preckwinkle, president-elect of the Cook County Board.
“Now comes the hard part,” she agreed with a laugh after winning the general election Tuesday. “It's not going to be easy.”
First up will be the 2011 fiscal budget, with Preckwinkle citing figures from the Civic Federation business-oriented watchdog group that the county faces a $285 million deficit. After being sworn in Dec. 6, she'll have to attempt to balance the budget, get other elected officials to sign off on cuts, complete it and get the County Board to approve it by February at the latest.
Repealing lame-duck President Todd Stroger's unpopular Cook County sales tax hike is part of her plan but not right away, she said, citing the county's finances.
“I said I would repeal the sales-tax increase,” Preckwinkle added. “I never said I would do so immediately.”
Preckwinkle said she has received no advance information from lame-duck President Todd Stroger, perhaps because she trounced his re-election effort in the Democratic Primary or because she promised “a general housecleaning” in removing slacker political appointees.
Yet, in celebrating “the opportunity we've been given” and vowing to “make the most of it,” the Democratic Hyde Park Chicago alderman held to two prominent promises. “We're going to cut taxes,” she said. “We're going to clean up county government by cutting patronage and doing everything in our power to root out the waste and fraud that's cost taxpayers millions of dollars.”
She said that, again and again over the course of her campaign, she was approached by dutiful county employees who said they were “discouraged” by other co-workers who seemingly never did any work. “The party's over,” Preckwinkle said. “County government has operated for too long in the shadows. It's time to open county government to its citizens and make it work for its residents.”
She said she was organizing a transition-team website cookcountytransition.com where anyone seeking a job in her administration can apply, adding, “This is the type of transparency and reform we need to implement to restore faith in county government.”
She said she was not reneging on her campaign promise to repeal the remaining half of Stroger's 1-percentage-point sales-tax increase, partially rolled back earlier this year. Yet, she said she would do so “responsibly” as new cuts and additional forms of revenue allow. She said she was likely to benefit from a new makeup of the County Board including like-minded reformers Jesus Garcia and McCook Mayor Jeffrey Tobolski, both of whom won Tuesday. Preckwinkle said she has long been a supporter of Garcia, and that she helped Tobolski's effort with money and campaign workers against Riverside Republican Tony Peraica, whom she has described as “an obstructionist.”
Even with that, she said, “The hard work has only just begun.”