After learning that he and Chicago’s other elected officials received favorable treatment in a cost-cutting program requiring city workers to take unpaid days off, Mayor Richard M. Daley decided to take 29 furlough days before the end of this year, said his press secretary, Jacquelyn Heard.
That is five more than other city workers must take.
The move came after the Chicago News Cooperative reported last week that the Daley administration treated elected city officials different from city workers in calculating furlough pay cuts.
Rank-and-file city workers have a 261-day-a-year work schedule, and thus each unpaid day off translates into a docking of 1/261st of their annual wages.
But because elected officials are considered to be working every day, each furlough day for the mayor, the clerk, the treasurer and the 50 aldermen represents a reduction of only 1/365th from the total.
Last year, when city workers took as many as 15 unpaid days off, the mayor voluntarily took 16.
In 2010, city workers will be forced to take as many as 24 unpaid days off to help the city balance its budget.
Mayor Daley will now make sure his unpaid days off are calculated in the same way they are for city workers, Ms. Heard said, and he will take off the extra days without pay to make up for the way his paychecks were determined in 2009.
“He wouldn’t ask any of his employees to do anything he isn’t doing himself,” she said this week.
“He was unaware there was a different calculation for elected officials.”
Of the 50 aldermen, 22 took fewer furlough days than other city employees last year.
“It’s totally unfair,” said an aide to one alderman who did not take as many furlough days as his staff.
That aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said, “We can’t really talk on the record because we would be totally out of work then.”
Read the original article from the Chicago News Cooperative.
Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services