2017: Year Of The Chicago Cash Grab
(CBS) -- The coming of the new year will bring more taxes and fees for Chicago residents -- with the city digging deeper into your wallet.
CBS 2 Political Reporter Derrick Blakley takes a look at the toll of the cash grab.
Mayor Emanuel's administration was crowing Thursday about saving money on sanitation:
60 fewer garbage trucks used a day, saving $30 million, since Emanuel switched from a ward-based collection system.
Fair enough. but what City Hall doesn't want to talk about is the growing avalanche of taxes and fees.
Jared Labell of Taxpayers United of America says Chicagoans might assume they're getting something new in services for all the new money they'll have to pay.
"They're going to pay for pensions," he says.
Next year alone, property tax hikes for the city and Chicago Public Schools will cost the owner of an average $250,000 home some $350 more.
Where does it all go? Pensions for police officers, firefighters and teachers.
Meantime, water and sewer bills will go up about $53. That goes to pension funds for municipal workers.
And those are just the latest tax increases. Once all the tax hikes passed since the mayor took office take full affect -- including a 9-1-1 phone tax, cable TV tax a garbage pickup fee -- the average homeowner will be paying almost $1,700 more a year.
Tax watchdogs believe some Chicagoans have already said enough is enough.
"Those who can afford to leave Chicago are doing so, in droves. They're leaving Cook County and they're leaving Illinois," Labell says.
Mayor Daley believed raising property taxes was the third rail of local politics. As a result, he kept them artificially low.
What's surprising is that Mayor Emanuel has pushed through so many tax hikes, and so far has not paid a political price.