Daley: Service cuts an option to balance budget

Mayor Richard Daley warned today that service cuts might be required to balance next year's city budget.

The mayor's annual State of the City speech marked the first time he has held out cutting services "permanently or for a year or two" as an option to dig out from a $655 million budget shortfall. Daley previously has acknowledged that all possibilities to fill the budget hole other than a tax increase were on the table.

"We cannot balance the budget through better management and growing revenues alone," Daley told a ballroom packed with aldermen and other city officials at the Chicago Hilton.

As he considers running for a record seventh term in February, Daley's 40-minute speech touched on many of the accomplishments that he said have made Chicago a stronger city.

He cited improvements in test scores this year and falling dropout rates as evidence Chicago schools are getting better.

Recent agreements to bring Wal-Mart stores to the Pullman and Chatham neighborhoods will create thousands of jobs and bring in millions of dollars in tax revenue, Daley said in the first of several lines that drew applause from the friendly audience.

Daley also laid out a template for what Chicago needs to do to remain economically competitive. He talked about transforming Chicago's economy in part through "Chicago Growth Accelerator," a privately funded job training and business incentive program he announced to bring technology companies to the city. In a comparison he brings up often, Daley urged Chicagoans to think like China, "20 or 25 years down the road in planning their economy."

It needs to be easier for businesses to get permits and licenses in Chicago, Daley said.

"Government should not stand in the way of business growth," he said.

And Chicago schools need to be able to provide the employees with the skills to work in those businesses by providing practical, technologically based educations, he said.

Though he has not said whether he will run again, the mayor's eye toward the future had several aldermen in attendance predicting he will be on the ballot early next year.

Ald. Latasha Thomas, 17th, said Daley sounded like a politician who wants to be in office to get some of the ideas he discussed rolling.

"Everything he said had future goals attached to it," Thomas said.

And Ald. Daniel Solis, 25th, said the mayor might be the only one capable of making the ambitious plans a reality.

"If those are going to get implemented, he's the person to do it," Solis said.