Maybe Fifth Ward Ald. Robert Ryan didn’t realize the full implication of what he was saying near the end of Monday night’s Committee of the Whole (“COW”) meeting, when he took the opportunity to once again trumpet his idea for a citizens finance task force/committee to do the work City Staff and the City Council seem to be so incapable of doing…or doing right.

Ryan, mustering all of his stiff upper lip resolve, stated that “there is one taxing entity in this town that doesn’t have financial problems” because “they have a tremendously strong financial committee.”  The object of his ardor: Park Ridge-Niles Elementary School District 64.

That’s right, folks.  Ryan wants the City to create a citizens finance task force/committee because the one over at District 64 has done, according to Ryan, “a super job advising the District 64 School Board.”

We don’t know whether to laugh or cry over a statement like that, because we can’t tell whether Ryan actually believes that ridiculous beeswax, or whether he knows it’s beeswax but is just trying to sell it to naive, uninformed Park Ridge residents – like the ones who bailed out District 64 with a massive tax increase 3 years ago in response to that administration’s and Board’s mismanagement of its finances even with the advice of a citizens finance committee!  

Ryan didn’t mention that referendum, which he supported.  And he didn’t mention the $5 million in working cash bonds the District issued without a referendum back in 2005, effectively replenishing the District’s depleted reserves and preventing the Illinois State Board of Education from taking over the District’s finances after several years of it being on the ISBE’s “early warning” or “watch list” for poor financial performance – tied in no small measure to the District’s drawing down its reserves to fund its regular operations, just like Ryan and his buddies have enabled the City to do in the wake of recent budget deficits.

But we suspect that what Ryan really doesn’t want taxpayers remembering is how the deterioration of District 64’s finances can be traced back to the construction of the new Emerson Middle School – for which then-District 64 Board Member Ryan was one of the main cheerleaders – that replaced what was then the newest school in the District.  As best as we can tell, the debt service on that new building and the costs of its operations were underestimated and/or misrepresented in the course of the successful “Yes/Yes” referendum campaign.

So when Ryan praises the District 64 finance committee, what he’s really saying is: “The City needs the same kind of committee that let District 64’s finances go down the drain before recommending a sneaky $5 million bond issue without a referendum, followed by a referendum for a multi-million property tax increase.”

Why didn’t you just say so, Robert?

A multi-million dollar tax increase would solve many of the City’s financial problems.  And, unlike District 64, which has to go to referendum to raise taxes above a modest amount, the City – as a home-rule body – can raise our taxes by mere resolution.  If that’s what Ryan and his fellow big-spenders on the Council are trying to achieve by continuing to jackpot the City treasury, they should have the decency to just say so.

Meanwhile, since neither Ryan nor Finance Committee Chairman Ald. Rich DiPietro (2nd Ward) seems capable of figuring out how to cut the budget in lieu of raising taxes, here’s one free bit of advice for moving forward on the budget while awaiting Hock’s draft document: Tell each department head to cut 10% of the current year’s expenses for the upcoming budget year 2010-11.  Such an exercise might not provide a final answer, but at least it’s more of a start than we’ve seen from the Council so far.

And it didn’t even require a citizens finance committee.