Garcia accuses Emanuel of cooking the books on city finances

The Chicago Sun-Times reports:

Mayoral challenger Jesus “Chuy” Garcia said Friday he’s offered a broad-strokes plan, with no specific revenue solutions to solve Chicago’s $20 billion pension crisis, in part because he has “good reason to think the books are cooked” by Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration.

Garcia has punted the question of new revenues needed to solve the city’s pension crisis and the $10 billion in unfunded liabilities at the Chicago Public Schools to a post-election commission that would report back in 90 days, if he wins the April 7 runoff.

He won’t even talk about asking more of taxpayers until he orders “performance audits” of every city department starting with the largest: the Chicago Police Department.

“We owe it to taxpayers to arrive at a solid baseline of what the revenues are, where they’re going, where they shouldn’t be going before we talk about increasing new revenues and taxes,” Garcia said in a conversation with Better Government Association CEO Andy Shaw, broadcast live on CAN-TV.

It's difficult to argue against what Garcia said.