City governments are parasitised by three groups. One is the body professional politicians that manage to get elected.The second is the construction companies they use to build/repair their infrastructure The other is the work force they employ.
All three arrange matters so they get twice as much money on average as the voters that pay their wages/
The politicians do it by simple theft by vote. They vote themselves large salaries/
The civil serpents form unions and strike and strike and get 3-5 year contracts with cost of living allowances (COLAS) AND 1 to 3% wage increase, for that 3-5 years.
The politicians pay it - to buy peace at the expense of the taxpayers. The construction companies are similarly unionised and do somewhat the same.
Compare the wages of the average city employee with the average non union tax payer.
Now you see why this insoluble problem has emerged over the past 30 years or so.
One year contracts. No signing bonus AT ALL (why reward strikers), so a one month strike costs ~~8% of your annual wage, 2 months ~~17% etc.
Why should these people get more than the tax payers? They are not more skilled.
They are in power or in the union.
Look at how much teachers wages have made books and equipment a vanishingly small % of their budget and how much they force the taxpayers to pay them.
These factors wrecked Detroit. They will wreck Chicago and all other cities as union wage and pension demands take so much money that people move away.
Newark died this way years ago.
It’s completely irrelevant to the topic at hand: Cities are not having problems maintaining their infrastructure because of politicians & building firms lining each others pockets - they are having problems maintaining their infrastructure because it is economically impossible for them to do so.
Self-serving hand-wringing about corruption in politics does nothing to solve this problem. It’s just an excuse to justify not doing anything.
While I'm not taking a side, what I believe OP was referring to were 'Prevailing Wage Laws' that prevent the city from using contractors that are paid below the set union wage. If the cites are unable to reduce one of the two main drivers (labor costs) then it makes infrastructure projects more expensive for repair and maintenance.
Compare the wages of the average city employee with the average non union tax payer.
Now you see why this insoluble problem has emerged over the past 30 years or so.
One year contracts. No signing bonus AT ALL (why reward strikers), so a one month strike costs ~~8% of your annual wage, 2 months ~~17% etc.
Why should these people get more than the tax payers? They are not more skilled.
They are in power or in the union.
Look at how much teachers wages have made books and equipment a vanishingly small % of their budget and how much they force the taxpayers to pay them.
These factors wrecked Detroit. They will wreck Chicago and all other cities as union wage and pension demands take so much money that people move away. Newark died this way years ago.