Last week, on January 12, 2011, contract talks with the County resumed as promised by the new County Board President.\u00a0 While talks resumed, it seems unlikely that a contract will be settled by the bargaining committee and ratified prior to the County Board balancing the budget as required by law (by 2\/28\/2011).<\/p>\n
President Toni Preckwinkle (President P) has been adamant about “nobody being absolved” of the requirement to trim 16% of their budgets on an annualized basis, 21% for the fiscal year.\u00a0 Judge Cunningham has been working hard to propose cuts to our budget that do not impact front line employees (i.e. ASSISTANT PUBLIC DEFENDERS);\u00a0 that having been said, it is a little unsettling to see the reaction President P <\/a>is having to\u00a0the reluctance of the Sheriff, Circuit Court Clerk and State’s Attorney to cut their budgets.\u00a0 And while the State’s Attorney is talking of firing dozens of prosecutors if she complies with the President’s request, I want to remind you that Judge Cunningham was quoted as saying that an 11% budget cut in the Public Defender’s office would mean “the loss of 90 public defenders.” (Public Defender Fears Drastic Budget Cuts of 11%<\/em>, Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, 10\/14\/2010).\u00a0 That’s with an 11% cut, not 21%<\/span>.<\/p>\n Now President P\u00a0has delayed putting out her budget for two more weeks.\u00a0 Supposedly, it’s coming out on 2\/1\/2011.\u00a0 But between now and then, find out who your County Commissioner is and then make sure to put his or her phone number in your cell phone address book so you can call when needed.\u00a0 This is urgent and more important than finding out where you are on the seniority list.\u00a0 And if you look at the list and feel relieved that you likely won’t be laid off, think of your brothers and sisters and their predicament.\u00a0We are in this together. \u00a0 It’s OUR problem, not just their problem – – \u00a0because if they’re not around to do their jobs, chances are, we will be doing not only our jobs, but their jobs as well.<\/p>\n When the budget comes out and we see what’s in store, we will\u00a0most likely\u00a0need to make the calls.\u00a0 Everything will depend on it.<\/p>\n In Solidarity,<\/p>\n K. S. Galhotra<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last week, on January 12, 2011, contract talks with the County resumed as promised by the new County Board President.\u00a0 While talks resumed, it seems unlikely that a contract will be settled by the bargaining committee and ratified prior to the County Board balancing the budget as required by law (by 2\/28\/2011). President Toni Preckwinkle […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/local3315.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/local3315.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/local3315.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/local3315.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/local3315.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/local3315.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1047\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/local3315.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/local3315.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/local3315.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}