Mayor Daley said Thursday that staffing cuts in the Personnel Department were made at the same time he was making reductions throughout city government.
“You had to balance the budget,” Daley said. “That was saving of taxpayer money first and foremost. I am proud we did that.”
The Tribune reported earlier this week that since he first took office in 1989, Daley slashed staffing by 54 percent in the Personnel Department, which was supposed to keep politics out of city hiring.
Two former senior city officials who headed pro-Daley patronage armies recently pleaded guilty to their roles in illegal schemes in which city jobs and promotions were dispensed to people who performed campaign work.
The Personnel Department was not singled out for cuts, the mayor said.
Daley spoke at a taping of a PBS (WTTW-Ch. 11) program, hosted by Bob Sirott, to be aired in its entirety at 7:30 p.m. Friday.
The mayor’s administration has been rocked this year by the hiring scandal, which remains under federal investigation, as well as disclosures of criminal wrongdoing in the city’s Hired Truck Program.
Daley acknowledged 2005 has been “a difficult, tough year.”
“But you don’t collapse,” he said. “You don’t fall down and stay down. You pick yourself up. That’s what we’ve done. Just because there’s a challenge there or an obstacle, you don’t collapse and give up. Believe what you’re doing, and you keep your vision strong.”
Mayor’s picks
— “Jarhead,” a Desert Storm war movie without combat, is high on his list of recent releases.
— His favorite recent restaurant meal was at Les Nomades, 222 E. Ontario St.
— He enjoys listening to “Crazy” Howard McGee on WGCI (107.5 FM). McGee “is a trip,” Daley declared.
–Tribune
![Claudia Perez’s children could count on one hand the number of times they had seen their father cry. The day their mother left was one of them. Perez had worked her whole life for a dream that did not come true: Save enough money to take her family back to Mexico and live together in the town where they were all born. Instead, on a cold February day, she stepped onto a bus in Brighton Park and said goodbye, making the difficult choice between her loved ones in Mexico and her family in Chicago. “Don’t leave my love. No te […]](https://www.chicagotribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/ctc-VHR5442_183545767.jpg?w=525 "Claudia Perez’s children could count on one hand the number of times they had seen their father cry. The day their mother left was one of them. Perez had worked her whole life for a dream that did not come true: Save enough money to take her family back to Mexico and live together in the town where they were all born. Instead, on a cold February day, she stepped onto a bus in Brighton Park and said goodbye, making the difficult choice between her loved ones in Mexico and her family in Chicago. “Don’t leave my love. No te […]")
