Double the Overtime

We guess this means VRI is here to stay....and expand:

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel's 2014 budget more than doubles the amount initially set aside for police overtime this year, reflecting the increasingly high financial cost of trying to tamp down gun violence on city streets.
  
  The new spending blueprint anticipates $71 million in overtime for police next year, compared with the $32 million the mayor budgeted for 2013 — an estimate the city rapidly blew past in response to a wave of murders and shootings that drew unflattering national attention.
  
  City budget director Alexandra Holt predicted that much of that 2014 overtime would be spent on saturation policing efforts in so-called impact zones, mostly South and West side neighborhoods that have borne the brunt of the bloodletting. By the time 2013 ends, Holt estimated the city would chalk up more than $40 million in overtime for impact zone policing.

And while Rahm is doing this, he's slashing the aldercreatures slush funds....by $6,000:

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel wants to deep-six a stealth City Council account that some aldermen used to put family members, campaign operatives and those with political baggage on the public payroll without detection until the Tribune exposed the practice.
  
  The $1.3 million secret fund, which dates back decades at City Hall, is zeroed out in the 2014 budget proposal the mayor unveiled Wednesday.
  
  The change, however, will save only about $6,000. That's because the money is being spent to create a council office of financial analysis and to beef up regular aldermanic expense accounts — which some aldermen also have used to hire relatives, lease office space from their own relatives and even lease luxury cars.
  
  The idea is to make hiring by aldermen more transparent. Employees paid through the stealth account did not show up on the city payroll, but those hired through expense accounts do. The move also could help the city comply with a federal court order, known as the Shakman decree, that bans taking politics into consideration for most city hiring.

Those speed cameras must be way more lucrative than Rahm is letting on.