The Civic Federation of Chicago, a leading good-government group, just released a report opposing the city's 2010 budget, saying it is unsustainable and relies too heavily on reserve funds to cope with falling revenue.
The organization praised the city for reducing expenses, eliminating cost-of-living raises for employees and avoiding a property tax increase.
But the federation's analysis says the city is balancing the budget with $370 million in reserve funds, is failing to fund police and fire pensions at a healthy level, and is carrying heavy debt burdens.
I'm at City Council, where aldermen are expected to take up the budget this morning. I'll be covering that in a separate post once they get past the preliminaries.
Meanwhile, here's the full Civic Federation report.
Any budget geeks out there spy issues worth commenting on?