Faced with an $11 million deficit next year, Naperville recently sought help from a consulting firm, which suggested reducing or eliminating dozens of expenditures, including Take Your Child to Work Day activities and Employee of the Month gift certificates.
Such minor sacrifices are becoming increasingly common as communities, grappling with yawning budget shortfalls, seek new ways to stretch dollars without disrupting services to residents.
In Orland Park, which faces a $1.3 million deficit next year, employees will not go as planned to an annual shopping center convention in Las Vegas, not be reimbursed for tuition, and lose half their budget for coffee, creamer and stirrers.
Bolingbrook Mayor Roger Claar said the village reduced the number of Christmas lights on major thoroughfares by 50 percent and opted not to send holiday greeting cards this year.
Claar said he’s sending around cost-cutting ideas to staff and elected officials that he gleans from other municipalities. “Everything is on the table,” he said.
Several suburbs, including Tinley Park and New Lenox, are adding beet juice to their road salt stockpiles to make the supplies last a little longer this winter.
All the minor cuts have not been enough to spare layoffs and other cutbacks involving employees. Naperville officials say they will make an unspecified number of layoffs next year, after cutting at least 43 positions over the past year, and firefighters are being asked to cut the grass at the fire stations and replace their uniforms less often.
“It’s no different than a regular household when times get tough,” said Fire Chief Mark Puknaitis.
Elsewhere, public safety is being asked to make larger sacrifices. Police and fire unions are being “besieged” with requests for voluntary furlough days, returning pay raises or freezing salaries, said Joe Mazzone, chief counsel for the Metropolitan Alliance for Police.
With police, Mazzone said the cuts could mean there is not enough backup for officers or officers being called who are not trained in working the street.
“Municipal and county governments are there for one reason: to provide services,” Mazzone said, “and they have completely forgotten that.”
Local officials say their biggest concern is cutting services, which can spark uproar from residents. Orland Park had considered eliminating Pace’s dial-a-ride program, but after almost 100 people attended a hearing to object, village officials reconsidered.
Tinley Park officials temporarily eliminated supplemental mosquito abatement, halved the budget for replacing parkway trees, and cut back on paper and postage by leaning more heavily on e-mail.
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In Naperville, City Council members rejected some of the cost-cutting ideas put forth by the consultant they paid $60,000. Cuts to snow removal and road kill removal will not be made because of their impact on residents, said city finance director Karen DeAngelis.
“The bias was to … do as much as we could behind the scenes,” DeAngelis said.
Residents have offered their own suggestions on how to balance budgets. On the Web site for the Naperville Area Homeowners Confederation, the most popular revenue-generating idea for the city has been installing more red light cameras.
The debate over how to get the city’s finances in order has been a wake-up call for some residents, said Bob Buckman, the confederation’s president.
“People still believe this is Nirvana, that living in Naperville is always going to be beautiful, green and bright,” Buckman said. “We’re facing reality here.”
Gerry Smith is a Tribune staff reporter and Dennis Sullivan is a freelance reporter.
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