City of Chicago
It appears the Chicago government’s shut down this Monday. The city of Chicago calls this a “reduced services day”. The city of Chicago has been hit with some tremendous budget problems and reduced tax revenue due to the recession, and this is one method they have come up with to deal with the shortfall. What this also means is that most of the non-essential employees employed by the city will receive no pay. Among the services closed down are the libraries, garbage collection, street cleaning and most other city offices. Those expecting their garbage collected on Monday will have to wait until Tuesday, which will probably lead to further delays for those who have their garbage picked up on other days this week. Mayor Daly stated:
“Every dollar we save from these measures helps to save jobs, and in the long-term, maintain services for Chicagoans. This plan relies on most of our civilian employees to be part of the solution to our very serious budget challenges. I want to thank them again for their sacrifice.”
However, essential employees such as police, fire and health services workers will still be going to work. This is good as essential services have to keep going. Although you may want to be careful of where you step as things could get pretty dirty pretty quick. I wonder how much trash and filth Chicago produces on an average day, it could get pretty smelly and gross around there pretty quick. These “reduced services days” are estimated to save the city about $8.3 million dollars per day. I think this is a worthy endeavor and more state’s and cities struggling should look at doing something similar. I imagine that California could save a pretty penny if they reduced services to four days a week for the next year or so. In difficult times such as these, hard decisions have to be made and limiting services occasionally seems like a good method of controlling costs. I’ll say that it is refreshing to see a city working hard to have some degree of fiscal responsibility, even if it means making hard choices. It may be uncomfortable while the Chicago government shuts down, but it will pay off in the long run.