Committee on Budget and Government Operations
TO THE HONORABLE, THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF CHICAGO
Esteemed Colleagues, Mayor Lightfoot, and Clerk Valencia,
Each of us feels the heavy responsibility of our municipal budget process, most especially in this year of pandemic, partial recovery, and ongoing struggle and uncertainty. I know how seriously the Administration and City Council take this annual task, and I submit the following ordinance language to the Committee on Budget and Government Operations with utmost respect to our shared goals and responsibility.
I firmly believe that legislation is a collaborative endeavor, and that no one individual has all the right answers or ideas. In that spirit, I have prepared and submitted preliminary versions of the three core pieces of legislation that make up our municipal budget: the Appropriations Ordinance, the Revenue Ordinance, and the Management Ordinance. I do so now, well over 60 days in advance of the required passage date for our budget, to ensure that the City Council is fully prepared and has all legislative and parliamentary tools available to pass the best, most consensus-based, budget possible in November.
My intent is not to present these measures as the sole solutions our City needs, but to establish a cadence and procedure for the City Council to more fully engage in the process, as we have been elected to do by our constituents. I expect and look forward to a robust period of debate and amendment before a budget is passed, and most especially to the pending submission of the Mayor's executive budget recommendations. Please consider this a starting point, and a tool for all members of City Council to use.
The submitted Appropriations Ordinance was drafted using a budget spreadsheet toolkit that I am happy to share with any interested Alders, and which will be significantly improved by the addition of new budget information from the Office of Budget and Management once the executive recommendat...
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