Budget season is upon us in Chicago, and with it comes a fundamental responsibility for every city leader to put the needs of our residents first. Crafting a budget that reflects those needs is more than a fiscal exercise. It is a moral obligation, one that demands thoughtful leadership, accountability and a commitment to delivering a responsible budget on time.
In these times, we’re asking working families to take on an increased financial obligation to our city. The least we can do in return is give them a break, without breaking their bank accounts.
We have $1 billion of uncollected debt, and a lot of the financial strain falls on Black, brown and poor people who already are struggling to afford their basic needs. Understandably, their priority is not paying the city. It is paying for groceries, rent or gas. So, we should split the difference, give people a chance to pay off debt while simultaneously collecting revenue the city would not get otherwise. The logic is simple. If we collect even a portion of the debt owed to the city, it is more than the nothing we are getting now.
I am proposing that my colleagues in the City Council work with me to establish a three-month debt amnesty, across multiple departments, and pilot an ability-to-pay model, starting with the $200 city sticker ticket, also known as a wheel tax violation.
Understanding that people will pay their fines, fees and other obligations if given a reasonable and affordable option to do so, an ability-to-pay scale would adjust how much a person needs to pay based on their income. San Francisco currently does this with its traffic court fines. People with incomes below 250% of the federal poverty level, about $60,000 a year for a family of four, can get their citations discounted by 80% or more.
Under this ability-to-pay model, administrative hearing officers could reduce city sticker citation fines for residents experiencing financial hardship. That hardship would be determined by a number of factors, including enrollment in certain government benefits and income compared to the federal poverty level. The result would be more money to the city, while giving people a fresh start and a way to become compliant.
In 2018, I worked alongside city agencies, City Council members and community organizations to look at how we could address regressive fines and fees that were putting people in debt or at risk of losing their jobs. The program looked at fines and fees from an affordability and fairness perspective to get away from a structure that ruined people’s lives and did nothing to address the city’s revenue shortfalls.
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Since then, the Office of the City Clerk has proved that reform can be effective in ending a practice that traps people into never-ending debt and still get much-needed revenue to the city. We’ve hosted three amnesty months, forgiving late fees and back charges for drivers to get their city sticker. We introduced the reduced-term sticker, allowing residents to purchase their city stickers in smaller, four-month increments — an option Chicago drivers have chosen almost 700,000 times in the almost seven years since it has been available. In our past three amnesty efforts, we’ve brought in over $4 million in new revenue and brought more than 40,000 drivers into compliance. This expands the pie, adds to our revenue and does not drown our residents in debt. And there is still more work to be done.
Eight years after we sounded the alarm on issues with fines and fees, it seems we have yet to learn from our past mistakes. Once again, we are turning to those same regressive fees to balance the budget on the backs of working people and our most vulnerable residents.
Putting together creative and effective solutions requires us to work with a sense of urgency that speeds past any political disagreements, egos or personal feelings to put the people who elected us at the forefront.
Implementing a three-month debt amnesty and piloting an ability-to-pay model would continue moving our city further away from ineffective practices of the past. I am ready to move these reforms forward now because Chicago residents deserve a government that holds itself accountable and is willing to make common sense changes. It’s time to roll up our sleeves, do the actual work and bring every new idea to the table.
It’s on all of us. Period.
Anna Valencia is the city clerk for Chicago.
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