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Committee on Budget and Government Operations

City to shift money to resurface 15 more miles of streets this year

Powerful alderman endorses Shiller to run indie budget office

City moves to compel contractors to report corruption

Mayor’s budget package, including 75-cent cigarette tax hike, sails through council committees

City contract payments for minority- and woman-owned businesses climb in 2013

The amount of money the City of Chicago paid to Minority- and Women-Business Enterprises rose by 11 percent over the last year, according to testimony from the city’s chief procurement officer at Friday’s City Council Budget Committee meeting.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office also announced Friday that from January to September of this year the city paid out $504 million for contract work -– 37 percent of which went to M/WBE firms. That figure exceeded the city’s goal of 30 percent spending on these companies for the year.

Aldermen have less to give up with proposed independent budget office

Aldermen push for more business inspectors, change in liquor laws

Chicago aldermen on Thursday called on the city’s Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection to hire more business inspectors and to work weekends to deal with rogue businesses.

CDOT chief leaves open possibility of bike registration

Echoing Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s previous comments, Gabe Klein, commissioner of the Chicago Department of Transportation, voiced skepticism on Wednesday about Alderman Pat Dowell’s (3rd) idea to make cyclists register their bikes. But Klein also left open the possibility of a $25-a-bike registration fee that Dowell argued could help the city generate revenue.

Impact of mental health clinic closings unclear after budget hearing

The head of Chicago’s Department of Public Health on Tuesday said that the city has increased the number of mental health patients it serves since the controversial closing of six mental health clinics in April 2012. However, there are fewer patients in the system today than prior to when the clinics closed. 

Bechara Choucair, commissioner of the Public Health Department, told aldermen at a City Council hearing on the mayor’s proposed 2014 budget that the city has expanded the number of mental health patients it serves from 2,369 when the clinics closed to 2,440 today.

City Fire Department says city Law Department recommended hiring freeze

City of Chicago Fire Department officials said on Monday that due to a series of legal issues, including race and gender discrimination lawsuits, the city’s Law Department recommended their department implement a hiring freeze over the last few years. That hiring freeze is over now, Fire Department officials said, but it has caused a major spike in department overtime pay.

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