City Hall is asking contractors to cut the prices they’re charging the city by at least 3% for the next 12 months to help balance Chicago’s budget.
The news, which surfaced late last week when letters to these vendors from Chief Procurement Officer Sharla Roberts were shared with the media, caused an immediate stir and prompted some aldermen to publicly advise contractors not to comply with the request.
Shared sacrifice in times of fiscal stress is a reasonable expectation. But this sacrifice is completely one-sided. One major component of how city government provides services — contractors — is being asked to tighten its belt while the far larger and more expensive part — union-represented city employees — is being asked to do nothing of the sort.
These vendors employ people, too, just as the city government does. Apparently, those workers are of less concern to Mayor Brandon Johnson and his progressive allies on the City Council than the workers represented by the public-sector unions that bankroll their campaigns. The unfairness is obvious, which makes this money-saving strategy indefensible.
What makes it worse is that this was the plan all along. In fact, there was a specific dollar figure given for the savings the administration expected to be achieved: $8.6 million. The idea was hatched late last year during the dramatic showdown between Johnson and the City Council over the 2025 budget, according to the administration and many aldermen.
Was the public informed of this tacit understanding during the budget discussions? They weren’t. Aldermen were briefed privately on this part of the plan to close the budget gap, but that news never reached the rest of us. Until the city moved to implement it.
Now, the mayor and aldermen face unseemly optics: privately agreeing to pressure vendors — many of whom already operate on slim profit margins — while failing to disclose that this was a key budget-balancing strategy to avoid raising property taxes.
Affected vendors might have wanted the chance to chime in during budget negotiations had they known a plan to rewrite their contracts was in the works. Instead, they got the news via form letter. With five days to respond.
In her missive addressing vendors as “valued partners,” Roberts justified the city’s request for givebacks this way: “The City has an obligation to taxpayers to pursue all avenues involving cost cutting measures. Vendors doing business with the City are no exception.”
We certainly agree with the first sentence: The city does indeed have an obligation to taxpayers to pursue all avenues to get its fiscal house in order without resorting to more taxes on an already overtaxed citizenry. Of course, given that the Johnson administration refused suggestions from some aldermen to impose unpaid furloughs on city workers or to reduce head count, the city isn’t pursuing all such avenues.
Anyone running a company or organization doing business with the city and now mulling how to respond is well aware of that fact. So the letter’s high-minded tone will rankle, no doubt.
It was telling, too, that some aldermen who’ve been supportive of most of Johnson’s agenda were running away from this plan as fast as they could once it surfaced last week. Daniel La Spata, whose 1st Ward includes Wicker Park, Bucktown and parts of other nearby neighborhoods, posted a video on X over the weekend, saying, “This was a bad idea when it was brought up during budget. This is the most indelicate way of implementing it.”
He said vendors are under “no obligation” to reduce their invoices. He emphasized that he believed that particularly to be the case for women- and minority-owned businesses. Left unsaid: Perhaps businesses owned by those not favored by progressive ideology ought to pony up, no matter how “indelicate” the city’s approach.
Sorry, Alderman. You and the 26 other City Council members who voted for the $17.1 billion budget are complicit. If this was such a bad idea, why didn’t La Spata and his peers kill it during the negotiations? And what exactly would be a “delicate” way of squeezing contractors?
La Spata wasn’t kidding about the lack of, shall we say, tact on the city’s part. “The City will always seek to do business with vendors that offer the most competitive prices,” Roberts’ letter said. She also asked for contractors to respond to the letter even if their answer was no to a price cut.
The threat wasn’t explicit, but there was an undeniable suggestion of consequences for those who don’t take one for the team.
Competitive vendor pricing is certainly something the city should prioritize. But the time to determine which vendors are offering the city the best deal is during competitive procurements, not after both parties have signed on the dotted line.
If the mayor and his team are going to take this road, they need to include city workers among those sacrificing. In the absence of a broader cost-cutting approach, which we would applaud, vendors should reject this request.
And both Team Johnson and complicit aldermen should be ashamed this ham-handed gambit was kept under wraps when those affected could have had a say.
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