At the moment Daley is caught up in a re-election campaign far less challenging than the city’s fiscal problems. Last year a committee of independent business analysts predicted that, absent new sources of revenue, Chicago would face a budget shortfall of up to 24 percent by 1996. Daley says raising property taxes would only drive more middle-class residents to the suburbs. Instead he has pushed several new privatization initiatives into the city’s 1991 budget. And, despite occasional squawks from some labor leaders, he has managed to focus public attention on cost savings rather than on job reductions. “This is a remarkable development,” says political scientist Paul Green of Governors State University. “The Chicago taxpayer has become more important than the payroller.”
Chicago is dishing out contracts for city services as disparate as sewer cleaning and addiction treatment. In several cases, services have improved while costs declined. Private towing companies have hauled away 50,000 abandoned cars with far more efficiency than city crews ever displayed. Net savings: $2.5 million a year. Private custodial companies have replaced 156 city janitors; the hallways are tidier and the city has saved $900,000 a year. Since December, three nonprofit medical clinics have been helping a city clinic reduce from 125 to 60 the number of days a pregnant woman must wait to see a doctor. Sister Sheila Lyne, the city’s health commissioner, says the shift may save money - and should help lower Chicago’s abysmal infant-mortality rate.
Several aldermen have questioned whether privatization invites a new era of “pinstripe patronage” - awarding contracts to campaign contributors. Thus far Daley appears to have resisted temptation. But, notes University of Chicago public-policy specialist Terry Clark, “this city is notoriously good at contracting for friendship.” Daley won’t say how far he’ll go with privatization. He has put the city’s huge police and fire departments off-limits, though there have been murmurs about contracting out ambulance and other specialty services.
