The British professional services firm EY — formerly known as Ernst & Young — knows a lot about the sorry state of Chicago’s finances and the best ways out of this mess.
In May, the city of Chicago gave EY a contract worth nearly $3.2 million to take a hard look at the budget and find both sources of new revenue and come up with “efficiencies,” to use the metaphor of choice when it comes to excising waste. The idea was to bring in the professionals and supplement the work of Mayor Brandon Johnson’s budget task force, chaired by Loop Capital founder and CEO Jim Reynolds and formally known as the Chicago Financial Future Task Force.
EY already had a broader consulting gig with the city, although it’s worth noting that the administration did not employ on this vital matter the Civic Consulting Alliance (CCA), the separate nonprofit organization with ties to the Commercial Club of Chicago. CCA operates pro bono to aid the city, typically with the help of private partners such as EY or the Boston Consulting Group and have worked on big projects in the past, but they obviously can’t do everything and using private-sector consultants is not new. Still. Worth noting.
EY’s work is contained in two reports on Chicago budgetary matters. First came the report issued Aug. 31 by that Chicago Financial Future Task Force, self-described as an “independent group of 24 civic leaders charged with charting practical, forward-looking options for the city’s long-term financial health.” EY helped write that report, albeit not under the firm’s own name.
Then after a lot of prodding by us and others, Johnson finally released the second, or if you prefer “fuller,” EY report in mid-October, written under the firm’s own name. There had been much speculation that EY’s findings had been filtered to suit the political priorities of the administration, or that perhaps the mayor’s office just didn’t trust City Council with the whole report.
Whatever. What matters is that the budget does not contain enough of those “efficiencies” and so it behooves aldermen not just to read both reports but also to call in the writers and ask them some questions.
We’ve heard tell of a deferential sentiment among some alders who see the EY deal as one made with City Hall and thus not their business.
Not true, of course. The city of Chicago is the client and its taxpayers are footing the bill. Slightly more than half of aldermen signed a letter last week requesting a hearing with EY representatives to get more information on potential ways to make city government leaner. That is a sentiment that should garner unanimous support on the council.
Aldermen not only have the right to grill those EY consultants about their work, and find out if there were any good efficiency ideas that did not make it in there, but as our duly elected representatives charged with approving or disapproving this problematic budget, they also have the obligation.
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