The Outpost Observer

Wake up, Congress: create jobs, fix our crumbling infrastructure

out·post, \ˈaut-ˌpōst\, noun: an outlying or frontier settlement

ob·serv·er, \əb-ˈzər-vər\, noun: a representative sent to observe but not participate in an activity

Saturday, November 12, 2011 

By John A. Ostenburg

It wasn’t that many years ago that “infrastructure” wasn’t a part of our everyday vocabulary.

As the nation grew, government put more and more money into roads, bridges, water and sewer lines, school buildings, parks, and other public facilities. The need was there, and so funds were appropriated to meet that need. Citizens just took it for granted that government would continue this course long into the future.

Perhaps a highpoint in modern improvements of this type was the interstate highway system created during the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. By the late 1950s, nearly every family in America had at least one automobile, post-World War II families were prosperous enough to take regular vacations, many individuals had re-located from their original place of residence to elsewhere in the U.S. because of a job or to advance their educations, and so the President proposed a highway system to accommodate that kind of travel and he got bipartisan support in Congress to fund it.

In the years since the creation of the interstate highway system, however, not a whole lot of attention has been focused on what we now refer to as infrastructure.

During the administration of President John F. Kennedy, attention went in the direction of creating an advanced space system. During the Lyndon Johnson years, the Great Society program focused on funding social needs, and at the same time a large portion of American tax dollars went to fund fighting in Vietnam. Richard Nixon’s administration continued the war funding, and then got so caught up in Watergate problems that little else gained much attention. The administration of Gerald Ford was too brief to accomplish much; Jimmy Carter’s term in office was consumed with the developing oil crisis; Ronald Reagan thought the best use for federal dollars was his “Star Wars” missile program; George H.W. Bush got caught up in the war thing too with Desert Storm.

Bill Clinton managed to bring some level of fiscal responsibility back to the federal government but the Monica Lewinsky scandal of his administration was the catalyst for much of the partisan bickering that today has become commonplace in the nation’s capitol. George W. Bush was able to reverse some of that and gain bipartisan support when the country went into crisis mode after the September 11, 2001, attack by Al-Qaeda, but that cooperative spirit dissipated as he led America into two prolonged wars and then oversaw the collapse of the U.S. economic system.

So now we are three years into the administration of Barack Obama, suffering from the most devastating financial conditions the nation has faced since the Great Depression, and suddenly coming face-to-face with the reality that everything structurally holding up our country is coming apart and collapsing around us. It’s the worst of all worlds: we finally are recognizing that we need to spend money to fix things at the same time that money is tighter than it has been in decades.

Even complicating matters more is the fact that partisanship in Washington, D.C., has reach its zenith. At one of the most crucial times in our nation’s history, a large segment of our elected representatives is so consumed with the goal of defeating a President of the opposite party that it will not allow anything that he proposes to be successful.

The President’s jobs bill will put Americans to work improving our crumbling infrastructure. It’s a twofer: it attacks the current high unemployment rate at the same time that it makes the necessary improvements to return soundness to our infrastructure. But his opponents would rather see all those Americans remain unemployed, and see our infrastructure crumble, just so the voters will deny Barack Obama a second term in office come November 2012. It’s not a matter of public policy; it’s a matter of absurdity.

In Park Forest, our water and sewer lines are a disaster. It’s likely that we will see an all-time one-year high of almost 200 water-main breaks before the end of 2011. It costs the Village of Park Forest $1 million for every mile of water-mains that is replaced, and there are approximately 72 miles of water-mains in the town. Park Forest definitely could use some federal assistance to improve our infrastructure.

In Cook County, 675 bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. That’s 24 percent of all Cook County bridges. Cook County definitely could use some federal assistance to improve its infrastructure.

Will County has 144 bridges that are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. That’s 20 percent of all bridges in Will County. Will County definitely could use some federal assistance to improve its infrastructure.

Both Cook County and Will County have unemployment rates that exceed 9 percent. Cook and Will County residents definitely could use the jobs the President’s proposal would create.

So why is Congress dragging its feet on the jobs bill? When are the partisan lawmakers in Washington going to wake up to the realities and stop their childish games?

I just returned from the National League of Cities Congress of Cities in Phoenix where I heard speaker after speaker address lack of jobs and crumbling infrastructure as major needs of our nation's municipalities. Without adequate employment, more and more residents of our cities, towns, and villages are losing their homes. Local government is forced to spend increasing amounts of local tax dollars to deal with the problems associated with abandoned and foreclosed homes. Property values of other residents of those communities decrease as the abandoned and foreclosed homes fall into disrepair and cause blight in neighborhood after neighborhood. It's a major problem nationwide, and jobs are the solution.

In communities such as Park Forest, residents are forced to pay increasing amounts on water and sewer bills in order to replace the mains that are crumbling. Those are the very infrastructure problems that President Obama is seeking to correct through his jobs bill, with funding going directly to local communities to make the necessary improvements. These are jobs that cannot be outsourced. They will employ local residents in solving local problems.

The examples of how the jobs bill will provide relief for local communities are legion. Yet, partisan politics are preventing the solution from going into effect. It's time for citizens across the country to insist that politicians in Washington put aside their private agendas and instead focus on the needs of the people.

Unless something is done soon about the decline of America's infrastructure, more bridges are going to collapse, more school buildings are going to be declared unsafe for our children, more roads and highways are going to be virtually impossible to use, and more and more water and sewer lines are going to break. This is a situation that no longer can be put off. It's a crisis. Amazingly, Washington found adequate dollars to enter into a questionable war in Iraq. Why can't Washington find the dollars to help our cities?

For more information on what's happening to the U.S. infrastructure, and on the solutions that are needed, visit the Building America's Future website at http://www.bafuture.org/.

John A. Ostenburg is in his fourth four-year term as mayor of Park Forest, Illinois, and formerly served in the Illinois House of Representatives. He retired in July 2010 as the chief of staff for the Chicago Teachers Union after holding various CTU posts over a 15-year period. A former newspaper reporter and editor, he also has been a teacher and/or administrator at elementary, secondary, community college, and university levels. E-mail him at JOstenburg@aol.com.

What if government really ran as a business

out·post, \ˈaut-ˌpōst\, noun: an outlying or frontier settlement

ob·serv·er, \əb-ˈzər-vər\, noun: a representative sent to observe but not participate in an activity

Tuesday, September 21, 2010 

By John A. Ostenburg

A few weeks ago, a resident in my community volunteered that -- although local property taxes are high -- she thinks residents get a good bang for their buck.

It was an unsolicited remark and therefore one that carried extra meaning for me. As a local elected official, I most often hear comments to the contrary. Residents are much more inclined to protest that taxes are too high and that they're not getting enough back for their investment. 

The complaining types often echo the philosophy of the current "Tea Baggers," in that they claim government runs very inefficiently and should be more modeled on how business operates. As a former small-business person myself, that concept gives me pause. I know first-hand how business operates, and it's not always as efficient as some on the outside might think.

During 14 years of running a small coffeehouse/bookstore, my wife and I often dealt with suppliers who couldn't get our orders straight, with companies that went out of business often within only a few weeks of when we received their promotional marketing materials, and with firms that could care less about the small merchant and instead catered only to those who purchased wholesale items in great quanities.

Imagine if the local police department couldn't get directions straight in responding to a criminal activity in process. Or if municipal parks, swimming pools, baseball fields, etc., all of a sudden were closed down. Or if the local fire department only responded to fires of a certain magnitude or larger.

U.S. government figures show that 25 percent of all new businesses don't survive beyond the first year, that 50 percent don't survive beyond four years, and that 60 percent fail within six years. Imagine if local governments had such a record.

It's not my intent here to bash business, but rather simply to point out that a business model is not necessarily the best one when it comes to the functions of local government. They are two distinctly different types of operation, and therefore cannot be judged based on a comparison of one with the other. Business has problems unique to it, and government likewise has its unique problems. The solution for both is not to try and imitate one another; rather it is for each to develop the very best method for dealing with its own uniqueness.

One very fundamental way in which government is different from business is that government must deal with ALL of the public, and not with selective segments. Government cannot say, "We're just going to focus on the senior segment (or youth segment, or middle-income segment, or high-market segment) of consumers, because that's where our greatest return is likely to be." Business, of course, can do that.

A very good example in this regard can be found within public education, which often is criticized as being less efficient and effective than is private education. But public schools are obligated to take all students, whereas private schools can be selective. Private schools are at liberty to locate themselves in whatever neighborhood they might choose, whereas many public schools must be located in neighborhoods with both high-poverty and high-crime rates. The two systems -- public and private -- are vastly different as regards their flexibility in curriculum, mandates, etc.

Government health care likewise often is criticized as more expensive than is private health care. But again, some of the patients that MUST be treated by the public health care systems are those that the private systems choose not to treat because their conditions are too costly, because the potential rate of success in dealing with those patients and conditions is extremely low, or because the patients cannot pay the cost the treatments would require.

So, the question is, should government continue to provide services to those who have nowhere else to go? Or should government become more selective, just as is business. Doing so probably would increase the overall efficiency of government, and make services much more cost-effective. On the other hand, doing so also would mean that lots of people would not have their basic needs met.

But, to return to the gist of the comment I referenced in my opening, many things provided by local cities and towns are a good deal for the average citizen. Local governments often choose to provide their residents with benefits and opportunities that no one in business ever would offer, simply because there wouldn't be enough profit in it for them. Outdoor concerts are not necessarily money-makers, but they satisfy the internal needs of individuals. Libraries are not money-makers, but they provide enrichment for residents. Parades and festivals are not money-makers, but they create a sense of belonging. All are highly valuable assets, paid for by tax dollars, that no profited-oriented business ever would undertake.

And the costs associated with these services are relatively low when compared to what one would have to pay in a commercial setting. Compare the cost of going to a two-hour municipally sponsored outdoor concert with that of a two-hour movie at a commercial theatre. Or compare the cost of a library card with the purchase of just one book at a local retailer. Or compare the cost of 24-7 police, fire, and paramedic coverage with the costs of any privately operated security system. In every case, the value for the expended tax dollar far exceeds the value of the dollar spent for the commercially obtained products or services.

So why do Americans complain so much about paying taxes but don't scream as loudly about the costs of retail items that they purchase? I think it has to do with our intrinsic desire to be a free people. Simply stated, we don't like having someone tell us what to do. So, we don't like it when government tells us we have to pay taxes. It doesn't make any difference what we may be receiving for those tax dollars. What matters is that we're forced to pay taxes, but we can choose how we spend our money on other things.

Drinking beer? It's a choice. Smoking cigarettes? It's a choice. Going on extravagant vacations? It's a choice. Buying an expensive automobile? It's a choice. Paying taxes? It's a requirement and we don't like it.

Every once in a while, though, some folks stop to think about things the way that resident mentioned above did. When they do, they realize all that they get in exchange for what they pay in taxes. When that satori moment finally arrives, they say what that resident said: "We get a lot for the taxes we pay."

John A. Ostenburg is mayor of Park Forest, Illinois, and formerly served in the Illinois House of Representatives. He recently retired as the chief of staff for the Chicago Teachers Union. E-mail him at JOstenburg@aol.com.

Congressman 'Tip' O'Neill had it right: all politics indeed is local

out·post, \ˈaut-ˌpōst\, noun: an outlying or frontier settlement

ob·serv·er, \əb-ˈzər-vər\, noun: a representative sent to observe but not participate in an activity

Tuesday, December 29, 2009 

By John A. Ostenburg

When you’re the mayor of a small town in a state that has produced two of the giants of American politics, your stature as a voice to be heard on matters of governance suffers from an innate and justified questioning of its authenticity.

 

I grew up in Springfield, Illinois – the city of Abraham Lincoln – and have experienced politics and governing in the same local arenas that nurtured Barack Obama. But aside from those two anecdotal ties to my state’s pair of most respected favorite sons, I really have had very limited exposure to the complicated workings of public policy that range all the way from confronting state secession to settling international crises.

 

Yet, I have a very distinct feeling that the most fundamental aspects of governing are those found at community meetings where I very often have to defend some local policy decision. In the summer of 2009, such local meetings nearly derailed health-care coverage for millions of American citizens who desperately need it. To a great extent, that happened because the elected leaders – congressmen and senators – who were conducting those sessions were playing the same role that small-town mayors and councilpersons play week-in and week-out, but they didn’t quite know how to handle it the way we do. Unfortunately, for many of those Washington-based officials, dealing with angry citizens in a face-to-face session was a bit overwhelming. The result was a lot of tails wagging a whole bunch of dogs.

 

From my perspective, the best lesson to learn from the late U.S. Speaker of the House Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill’s admonition that “all politics is local,” is the importance of dealing with citizens at the local level. I know Speaker O’Neill was preaching the importance of winning votes at the local level when he made his oft-quoted statement, but the significance of his words is much greater. The voices of citizens at the local level give rise to comments that don’t carry the same lofty platitudes that are contained in the statements and questions that come from citizens who participate in the public debates held among candidates for president, U.S. senate, or congress. That’s why the senators and congressmen who suddenly were attacked at the various health-care town hall meetings were so unprepared for what they received.

 

In true local settings, citizens aren’t at all concerned about how they might look on television reports. They’re not all that concerned about whose feelings they might hurt. They’re not even all that concerned about the total accuracy of what they might be saying. They perceive, maybe even unconsciously, that no one is making any kind of public record of what is happening and so they let all their feelings – and especially their anger – flow out in an uncontrolled way. When they do that, a contagion often spreads through the entire audience, with others jumping on the bandwagon with their comments about how the system has failed. What happens is exactly what happened in the health-care town hall meetings.

 

When small-town mayors and councilpersons experience this type of circumstance, they generally know at least some of the folks in the audience on a personal basis. Maybe some are neighbors, or fellow workers at a local business or industry, or have kids who attend the same school. That personal acquaintance gives the local official the opportunity to say, “Now listen, Joe, you know that last statement isn’t true.” Many times that’s all it takes to defuse an otherwise volatile situation. That approach didn’t seem to be an avenue open to the officials holding the health-care meetings and, as a result, things just degenerated into shouting matches.

 

I happen to believe that local meetings are government at its finest. Yet I also recognize that uncontrolled local meetings can lead to nothing short of anarchy. They can be the hotbed for demagogues. They can create totally false impressions of public sentiment by being overrun by the loudest voices, even though those voices might not be representative of the true sentiment of the group as a whole. That’s where local leadership becomes so important. Someone needs to moderate the discussions in such a way that that the process isn’t shanghaied by a few whose purpose is nothing short of advancing their own narrow agenda. Again, that’s what happened with the health-care meetings.

 

Now, I don’t purport to be any more of a master of this process of moderating than might be anyone else, but I’m at least aware of the potential of what could occur and thus go into meetings with local residents prepared for the worst while praying for the best. I think that’s an attitude I share with lots of my fellow local officials. The art to stopping snowball effects from taking place is to recognize the significance of how much snow that initially tiny little ball will collect as it rolls down the slippery slope.  That’s what compels one to jump in front of things and stop the decline before too much momentum is gained.

 

The goal should not be to quell public dissent, if indeed dissent is in order (as it very often is!); the goal should be to make sure an honest and forthright exchange takes place. I’m a great proponent of public policy that is developed from the head and not the heart; that means thoughtful public policy rather than policy born from emotional outbursts. It is incumbent upon the local leader in group-settings to make sure emotions don’t gerrymander the process; little of real value can be accomplished if it that occurs.

 

I recently had the occasion to meet with a group of citizens of a new subdivision in my town whose property assessments are literally off the charts. As a result, their taxes are greater, in some cases, than their mortgage payments. Taken together – taxes plus mortgage – the total dollar amount exceeds what many can afford to pay. Because of the high taxes, which are totally out of balance with what they were told at the time they made their purchase, some are facing the potential of losing their homes. It was not a pretty setting. The residents came to the meeting angry with municipal government because they believed we were responsible for setting both their tax rates and their assessments. At a couple of points during the session it looked as though the entire meeting hall was going to turn into a battle-zone. Fortunately, however, a little straight-talk kept the emotions in check, allowed most of the people in the room to gain a better understanding of the process, and ultimately resulted in residents who are eager to work with their local officials to bring about true and meaningful tax reform. Meanwhile, we – the elected officials – are working with them to find some ways of minimizing the negative impact of those tax bills.

 

I relate this story only to illustrate that even the most volatile of situations can proceed in the proper direction if the effort is made to set the record straight. At one point in the meeting, I had to raise my voice in response to voices that were raised against me. However, my voice was able to convey factual information, whereas a few of the loudest against me were speaking only from emotional perspectives. Even they ultimately came to see that the problem is greater than what local government can correct. They came to recognize, as many of the rest of us already had, that solutions come from clear thinking and not from shouting matches. Chaos never has as its intent to settle a dispute; it has as its intent to inflame a dispute. Therefore, ask yourself what the real motive is of those who would generate chaos at every turn.

 

The town hall meetings on health care didn’t need to turn into the messes that they ended up being. Many of the speakers at those gatherings had legitimate concerns and questions. Unfortunately, they were overpowered by a handful whose only intent was to stop anything at all from happening. The chaos-makers had a game-plan that had nothing whatsoever to do with health-care reform. Their game-plan was to stop health-care reform. Sadly, the elected officials who were present and should have shown the intestinal fortitude to suppress emotional outbursts and control the direction of the meetings at best didn’t know how to handle the situation, or at worst simply chose not to. As a result, all across the nation an inaccurate image of massive opposition to health-care reform took center stage. That in turn led to lots of amendments to the bills that were under consideration in congress and as a result all Americans will benefit from this legislation a little less than they should.

 

I have to think that a good part of the true leadership ability of both Abraham Lincoln, whose mastery of wit led him often to settle disputes before they got out of hand, and of community-organizer Barack Obama, who himself was able to deal with town hall meetings without any disruption whatsoever, is rooted in a local government approach to national policy-making. Both men seem possessed of a fundamental understanding of human behavior and know-how to deal with it positively rather than react to it negatively. It’s too bad so many members of congress – those who were over-run by their own town hall meeting audiences – don’t possess the same leadership style. If they did, we might have a much better health-care reform bill emerge from Washington than what we’re likely to receive.

 

The people’s voice always must be heard and must be listened to. However, when a handful dominate an assembly, it’s not “the people’s voice” that’s being heard; rather it is the voice only of the handful. And why, I ask, should the opinion of a handful ever be allowed to overpower the voice of the majority? 

 

John A. Ostenburg is mayor of Park Forest, Illinois, and formerly served in the Illinois House of Representatives. He is the chief of staff for the Chicago Teachers Union. E-mail him at JOstenburg@aol.com.

Local government performs four very basic but important roles

out·post, \ˈaut-ˌpōst\, noun: an outlying or frontier settlement

ob·serv·er, \əb-ˈzər-vər\, noun: a representative sent to observe but not participate in an activity

Saturday, October 24, 2009 

By John A. Ostenburg

Some time ago, I was asked what local government actually does. Giving the question some thought, I came up with the following response.

 

Local government performs four basic tasks: (1) assuring that citizens respect the rights of one another; (2) providing essential services required to meet public needs; (3) managing the various operations that are necessary for the public good; and (4) providing funding for the various operations that the public requires.

 

The first of these four – assuring that citizens respect the rights of one another – is the fundamental basis of governing. Elected officials are charged with the responsibility of creating ordinances that are intended to maintain a balance between the rights of the individual and the common wellbeing of the citizens as a whole. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once noted that “The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins,” and that is the basic premise for law in a civil society. Every individual has a wide range of personal rights and options, but none of those rights or options allows him or her to infringe on the rights and options of fellow citizens. As a result, laws are enacted based on a common denominator of what is best for the greatest number of individuals, while at the same time guarding and protecting the personal freedoms of every individual as guaranteed by our constitutional government.

 

Maintaining that balance is not an easy task and is probably one of the most difficult jobs that the elected official faces. Special interests continually emerge and advocate for one course of action or another, based on the firm and solid beliefs of the individuals who support those interests. Often citizens find it difficult to understand why their special interests cannot be codified into law; they sometimes are so personally committed to the ideals behind their interests that they cannot recognize the potential negative impact such principles might have on others who do not share the same ideals.

 

When government begins to act on personal interest more than the general interest, disaster is right around the corner. So, elected officials must be very circumspect in their decisions and in the ordinances that they enact. Governing is not an easy task, but it is a necessary one. Not everyone always will be pleased with the laws that are established, but hopefully no one ever will be hindered by them.

 

The second task of government – providing essential services required to meet public needs – is easier for most citizens to understand. Most people get it that the services of policemen and firefighters are needed in order to preserve the common good. Most people also understand that streets have to be maintained, that water and sewer services need to be provided, and that parks and recreational facilities are part of the quality of life that communities offer.

 

The problem is not that citizens don’t understand these needs, or that they’re not grateful that they are available 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week, 52-weeks-a-year; the problem, rather, is that most people don’t realize that taxes are needed to support these vital services. Lots of citizens complain about high taxes without ever considering that the many services provided by government actually come at far less a price than do the services of various private businesses.

 

In part, the lack of appreciation for what the tax dollars actually provide comes from the fact that most citizens don’t need all the services of government on a continuing basis. Gratefully, relatively few citizens need police, fire, or paramedic protection more than a few times in their entire lives, yet those are items that take the biggest portion of local tax dollars to maintain. A large part of what taxes pay for is the availability of those services when they are needed.

 

The third role of government – managing the various operations that are necessary for the public good – is the same as management in any business or corporate enterprise. Someone needs to provide direction to staff members and to oversee various operations. Municipal government is a major business, with millions of dollars being collected and spent in the average community. Proper management assures that the dollars spent on those operations produce effective results.

 

Additionally, municipal managers maintain on-going contact with the public to assure that services provided in fact are meeting the needs of the citizens. Government managers are troubleshooters, always looking for things that need to be improved, that need to be addressed for the first time, or possibly even eliminated because they’re no longer needed. Good management is an essential part of any operation, and local government is no different.

 

Finally, one of the most important roles of local government – providing funding for the various operations that the public requires – assures that adequate taxes are collected and are spent wisely. To a great extent, costs drive just about everything else in government. Budgets are built on careful analysis of what citizens expect their government to do, and then taxes are collected to meet the various activities identified in the budgetary process. It’s the responsibility of the elected officials to prioritize the needs proportionate to the available revenue to pay for them.

 

In my municipality, for example, building the budget is a nearly year-long process, with goal-setting as the principal component. Citizen input is sought in various ways as a backdrop to the subsequent activity of setting goals. Once goals are identified, an analysis is done of how much revenue will be needed to meet those goals. That revenue then is divided into the various cost-center activities that will assure the fulfillment of the desires of the citizens.

 

People often are critical of government because it is slow and sometimes less efficient than it should be. Additionally, not everyone always gets from government the things that he or she thinks are most important. Yet, I think any careful analysis of most government operations will find that things flow fairly well, given all the complexities involved. It’s hard to satisfy all the people all the time, especially when revenues available to do so are limited. However, if elected officials are doing what they should be doing, then everyone is going to be satisfied at least most of the time.

 

John A. Ostenburg is mayor of Park Forest, Illinois, and formerly served in the Illinois House of Representatives. He is the chief of staff for the Chicago Teachers Union. E-mail him at JOstenburg@aol.com.

Some 'unfunded mandates' are bad, but many others are okay

out·post, \ˈaut-ˌpōst\, noun: an outlying or frontier settlement

ob·serv·er, \əb-ˈzər-vər\, noun: a representative sent to observe but not participate in an activity

Monday, September 28, 2009 

By John A. Ostenburg

A common complaint among lots of municipal officials is that the state or federal government many times imposes mandates that the local officials then must implement. It becomes especially problematic when costs associated with putting the state or federal measures in place require local funding, which means that municipal taxes increase because of something that elected officials at a higher level have decided is important.

 

While I agree with my fellow elected officials that “unfunded mandates” are a problem, I also recognize that higher levels of government sometimes have to mandate things because folks at the lower levels have ignored the need to do something.

 

In the 1960s, for example, the federal government had to require the various states to provide for the civil rights of all their citizens because many of the states themselves chose not to do so on their own. Were there costs involved in that process? Indeed. Were the various states required to meet those costs? Yes. But was the federal government supposed to foot the bill just because it made the states do what they should have been doing in the first place? I don’t think so.

 

Likewise, over the last few years, many states – including Illinois – have put smoking bans in place. Local governments have been charged with the responsibility of implementing those bans, which in turn has required the expenditure of local tax dollars. But is it the state’s responsibility to come up with the funds to support laws that are for the common good of all the citizens? Given the fact that it costs the taxpayers more to pay taxes at the state level and then have them funneled through the bureaucracy and eventually back to implementing local standards, I don’t think so.

 

As I recall from my high school geometry, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line; as applied to taxes, that rule means that the least amount of taxes are required for projects that are funded at the level where they are implemented, rather than tax dollars going to Springfield or Washington and then eventually finding their way back to local government.

 

Over the last several years, lots of mandates have come down regarding environmental issues. The federal government has required the states to do certain things and the states in turn have required cities, towns, and villages to meet certain standards, many times with various expensive price-tags associated with them. The end result, however, has been protection of our planet, and improvement in the quality of the air we breathe and the water we drink.

 

Frankly, I welcome the standards that have been set by higher levels of government on matters such as this. Federal and state officials often have resources at their disposal that allow them to see a problem much more comprehensively than we could do at the local level. And – in the final analysis – if what they are requiring us to do is in the public’s best interest, and if it will be paid for by taxpayers anyway, what difference does it make whether those taxes are collected locally, statewide, or federally?

 

Now, I don’t mean to suggest by my remarks that I think elected officials at the federal or state levels are smarter than are local officials. Nothing could be further from my true opinion. All I’m arguing is that blanket opposition to “unfunded mandates,” without careful consideration of everything that’s involved in each individual one of them, is nothing more than a knee-jerk and illogical response. Some mandates are bad, and some are good. Effective policymakers examine each one on its own merits rather than hide behind some cliché-ish objection to all of them.

 

For example, I think, personally, that some state legislation that has been passed requiring local governments to provide extra benefits – e.g., special pension benefits – for public employees statewide in certain groupings – i.e., firefighters and police officers – is a one-size-fits-all approach that’s not particularly beneficial to the public at large, especially since it’s not the state that pays for those benefits but rather the local units of government. To my way of thinking, that’s a mandate that oversteps the authority of state lawmakers. After all, they already have imposed legislation that requires collective bargaining with public employees who desire to unionize and engage in such. So why undermine that process by then also taking some things off the table as items that can be bargained?

 

I believe strongly in the right of public employees to unionize and to engage in the collective bargaining process. I believe they have the right to go to the negotiating table with their list of demands and to barter with management over which ones ultimately make their way into a mutually-agreed-upon contract. I believe they have the right to strike if they cannot convince management by any other means that they deserve better consideration than they are receiving.

 

When the state jumps into the process by requiring certain definitive benefits for all employees, even if they are benefits that the employees in a particular municipality may not be seeking, then the collective bargaining process is thrown awry. The tax dollars that are being used to fund the mandate might have been used for something that the public employees thought more important, but the opportunity to bargain the mandated items is not an option because the state has made their guarantee a requirement. It’s hard for me to understand how that’s in the best interest of the employee or anyone else.

 

So my message to legislators – federal or state – is not to stop the mandates, but rather to be more circumspect in which mandates ultimately are passed down. Don’t pass on a mandate just because you want to curry the favor of a particular group, or just because you want to pass on to someone else the responsibility for raising taxes to fund a needed action. Rather, give thoughtful review to each situation to decide what in fact is in the best interest of all parties involved, and then act accordingly.

 

And my message to my fellow local officials is similar. Don’t oppose all mandates just because you like to rail about “unfunded mandates.” Rather, you too should give thoughtful review to each situation to decide what is in all parties’ best interest, and then act to ensure that.

So, do you think I’m a utopian? Or just a fool?

John A. Ostenburg is mayor of Park Forest, Illinois, and formerly served in the Illinois House of Representatives. He is the chief of staff for the Chicago Teachers Union. E-mail him at JOstenburg@aol.com.

Not all TIFs are bad -- just the ones that aren't real TIFs are bad!

out·post, \ˈaut-ˌpōst\, noun: an outlying or frontier settlement

ob·serv·er, \əb-ˈzər-vər\, noun: a representative sent to observe but not participate in an activity

Monday, August 24, 2009 

By John A. Ostenburg

Even lots of informed citizens, when they hear about TIF districts, have a negative reaction. TIFs have a bad reputation and it's not totally undeserved.

First of all, let's define what constitutes a TIF district. The acronym stands for tax increment financing. A TIF district is a set geographic region in which a tax increment financing program is in place. In Illinois, state law requires that the geographic region designated for a TIF district be blighted, or be in danger of becoming blighted.

Now, how does a TIF district work?

It starts with the designated area and how much that area is assessed in property taxes at the time the district is created. For example, say a specific region generates $1 million in property taxes at the time the district is put in place. Once re-development is underway in that region, the property value should go up, so the property tax assessment should go up also. Say the assessed taxes go up to $1.2 million in the first year after redevelopment. The increment is the difference between what the new assessed taxes are and what the assessed taxes were at the time the district was created. In this case, $200,000. The increment now is available to pay for various TIF-eligible expenses related to the re-development of the district.

That all sounds rather simple, doesn't it? But in reality, lots of problems often pop up if things haven't moved along in a totally kosher fashion.

The most common problem from the get-go is the interpretation of what might be a blighted area. In desiring to establish a TIF district, a municipality will hire a consultant to analyze the situation and decide whether it qualifies as blighted or potentially blighted under the definitions established by the state. Herein lies a major complication: it's a little like asking the fox to guard the chicken coop for a city or town or hire a consultant to evaluate an area the municipality already has chosen as a place where it would like to create a TIF district. Furthermore, once the city or town begins the process of applying for TIF status, it's usually the same consulting firm that provides all the guidance to see the process through to fruition. Therefore, as is obvious, just getting the TIF district off the ground is a hotbed for conflicts of interest.

A second complication is getting all the various taxing bodies located within the proposed TIF district to agree that it's a beneficial process. School districts, park districts, library districts, and the like sometimes have less opportunity to gain increased revenue in such districts because they don't have the qualifying TIF-eligible expenses. For them, the tax revenue from the TIF area will remain the same for the life of the TIF agreement, usually 20 years. No matter how much the property values go up during that period, they will see little -- if any -- increased revenue.

For truly blighted areas, this is less of a problem. In most of those cases, the revenue return to various taxing bodies probably wouldn't have increased anyway without new development, and new development probably would have been unlikely without some infusion of incentive dollars from local government. In areas where the assessments probably would have increased due to inflation or other reasons, however, a TIF district can be a definite loss of revenue for governmental entities that cannot cash in on the increment that's generated.

Where this becomes a true public policy detriment is in cities and towns where municipal officials also have control over other taxing bodies, either directly or indirectly. In the city of Chicago, for example, the mayor also has direct control of the public school system and has a political influence over government in Cook County. Neither the school district nor the county, therefore, is positioned to offer an adequate check and balance on the city's decision to establish a TIF district. In many regions where TIFs are established, the political entity that controls municipal government also has a strong hand in the other elected bodies.

What constitutes TIF-eligible expenses in itself is a point of controversy in some regards. Political leaders often direct much of the funds toward associates who are developers or consultants. Likewise, they often will designate large municipal expenses as TIF-eligible. As such, even though a TIF agreement may indicate that any revenue above and beyond the TIF-eligible expenses will be equally shared with other taxing entities in the TIF district, schools and the like seldom see much of the extra revenue.

Finally, the bottom line is that many TIF projects never succeed in producing the kind of revenue that was projected when the district was created. Obviously, developers and other property owners in the TIF district have to be financially successful in order to meet all development expenses and to pay the new taxes that are being assessed on the property. If they don't meet their development expenses, no increase in assessment will occur; if they don't pay their taxes, no increment will be generated. Municipalities thus often get left holding the bag on a TIF district that's gone astray.

All this, of course, does not mean that TIF districts are all bad. The concept is a good one and has been in place in several states for a number of years. Many a blighted area has been restored as a result of TIF financing, with the entire community seeing positive results as time rolls on. The truly blighted areas are the ones where no one wants to invest without the hope of some return. TIF districts offer a great incentive for investment in areas that traditionally have been ignored.

At present, about 400 TIF districts are in place throughout Cook County, with 150 or so located in Chicago. According to Cook County Clerk David Orr, 67 percent of those districts saw an increase in assessed taxes from the 2006 to 2007 tax years. In my own community of Park Forest, a TIF district created in 1997 for the redevelopment of our downtown saw an increase in assessed taxes of approximately $400,000 during that one-year period. We have a second TIF district, designed to redevelop a defunct strip mall, that has not yet begun to provide any increment.

So are TIFs bad? The answer is "No." That is, they're not bad if they really do meet the TIF standards that are codified in the law. From my perspective, those districts that have been created by twisting the law one way or another shouldn't really be viewed as TIF districts at all. Rather, they are simply projects in which the law has been manipulated by self-serving politicians and their friends in the development world for their own personal gain.

I was told many years ago that no matter how good a public policy might be, persons with larceny in their hearts will find a way to twist it to their own ends. That's certainly been the case with TIF districts. Yet, doing away with the program offers little hope for many communities that have grasped onto TIFs as the last straw for their survival.

So, when it comes to the TIF program, the need is for reform, but not elimination. Our legislators need to look at how the program has been used and by whom, and then correct the errors to eliminate the abuses but maintain the benefits.

John A. Ostenburg is mayor of Park Forest, Illinois, and formerly served in the Illinois House of Representatives. He is the chief of staff for the Chicago Teachers Union. E-mail him at JOstenburg@aol.com.

Rethinking those "wasteful" claims about government

out·post, \ˈaut-ˌpōst\, noun: an outlying or frontier settlement

ob·serv·er, \əb-ˈzər-vər\, noun: a representative sent to observe but not participate in an activity

Monday, August 17, 2009 

By John A. Ostenburg

When I hear people at the health care town hall meetings, and in other public gatherings, screaming that they don’t want government to run anything because it’s so darn inefficient, I want to scream myself.

As mayor of a municipality of about 25,000 residents, I am very well acquainted with lots of things that government runs very efficiently – and very cost-effectively too, I might add – and it bothers me that so many citizens want to ignore this fact.

In my town, for example, homeowner property taxes are rather high due to the lack of a lot of commercial activity. The average homeowner pays somewhere in the vicinity of $5,000 per year in property taxes, and about one-third of that goes to municipal government. The rest is divided up among school districts, the township, the county, and various special districts such as forest preserve and mosquito abatement, etc. So, on average, homeowners in my town pay about $1,500 per year to city government, or about $125 per month.

But what do they get for those payments?

Let’s start with 24-7 police protection. Law enforcement personnel not only are on the street every hour of every day looking for law-breakers, they’re also investigating crimes that have occurred and very often assisting neighboring police departments in their investigations. They also engage in crime-prevention activities such as Neighborhood Watch and similar programs with citizens to better prepare them for protecting themselves from a variety of possible offenses. And they engage in a number of special programs dealing with youth and counseling them away from drugs and gang activities. Finally, they visit lots of homes to help settle domestic squabbles before they get out of hand.

Then there’s the 24-7 services of the firefighters and paramedics. Within minutes of receiving a call, they’re at the doors of residents to keep them safe or to provide life-saving services and then transport them to medical centers when the need demands. Regularly I receive phone calls, notes, and e-mail messages from residents, thanking me for the fact that paramedics saved the lives of persons they love.

In addition, there are the various parks and recreation services that are available for residents to use and enjoy. In our town, we don’t have a separate park district with all the extra administrative costs that entails; instead, we have a parks department that oversees all those activities. And it's financed through the regular property tax allocation the city receives.

In my community, we also have a full-service health department, admittedly something rare in most communities of our size. The nurses in that department provide home-visits to the residences of senior citizens and to the four senior centers in our town. They also provide immunizations for things such as the outbreak of influenza, and they provide – at no extra cost – state-mandated school physical examinations for the children of families who cannot afford them due to lack of health insurance or other financial problems.  All that's in addition to a number of  wellness programs that are intended to help citizens avoid major illnesses.

Then there are the other programs, such as the building inspectors who make sure that dwelling structures in our municipality meet all the required codes and are safe places in which people may live. And the employees of our public works department who will go out in the middle of the night – no matter what the weather – to repair water main breaks, or sewer breaks, or to remove branches that are obstructing roadways due to storms, etc.

And there are other workers who make sure that various administrative tasks are done, or that businesses that wish to locate in our community are given the right information and guidance, or who assure long-range planning is done so everything operates the way it should day-in and day-out.

And what pays for all those round-the-clock services? An average of about $125 per month per residence in property taxes.

How does that compare with what you pay each month for gas and electric utility services? Or with what you pay for cable or dish television services? Or with what you pay for various home repair services? Or with how much you may for insurance coverage? Or how much you pay for automobile fuel and maintenance?

Dollar-for-dollar, service-for-service, nothing gives the average homeowner the return on his/her payment that local government provides. And yet what do people go to meetings to complain about? Is it gas prices? Is it insurance prices? Is it the price of consumer goods? No. It’s government!

Something is really, really wrong with this picture.

John A. Ostenburg is mayor of Park Forest, Illinois, and formerly served in the Illinois House of Representatives. He is the chief of staff for the Chicago Teachers Union. E-mail him at JOstenburg@aol.com.