HOW MANY HOURS IN A YEAR? The Cost of Security

The Chicago Sun-Times published one of their watchdog reports called, “The cost of public officials’ security details? “ The story pointed out that while City Clerk Miguel Del Valle chose not to have any security protection, “Four other city officials, though, do have the taxpayer-funded bodyguards. They include Mayor Daley, city Treasurer Stephanie Neely and Ald. Edward M. Burke (14th), chairman of the City Council’s Finance Committee. And the fourth? The police won’t say.” Later it was revealed that the fourth official was Louis Jordan, CEO of the Chicago Housing Authority. The story also reported that the City of Chicago’s financial records show the cost to taxpayers was at least $4.6 million last year. That number makes no sense!


I am one of the few people who question when I see numbers in a story. I don’t blithely accept them as most readers do; I try to figure out how the number was arrived at. Some might call it a mathematical sickness, I call it a curiosity.


This time, what makes the $4.6 million number so fascinating is that it is TOO BIG if one is talking about protecting ONLY FOUR people. If the city records show that $4.6 million was spent, I believe it, but the City is LYING if they claim the money was spent on protecting ONLY FOUR people. There have to be more people with security guards for the expenditure to make sense. Simply put  that figure means that the cost of security per person is $1,150,000/year or $3150.68/day!


I figured out three different scenarios of protection: in one case I assumed a salary of $50,000/year for the guard; in another, I used $200/day and in the final case, I assumed a various numbers of guards. What makes the most sense is that during the 16 “day hours,” the Mayor has three guards, Alderman Burke has two, Treasurer Neely has two and CHA Louis Jordan has one. For the eight evening hours, I took one guard away from everyone except Jordan; I left him his one guard. I arrived at the combinations in an empirical manner-- by means of observation and personal experience.




(1) HOURS IN A YEAR


8760 hours in a year/ $50K salary per shift broken down hourly


Daley—3 people- $657,000


Neely- 2 people $438,000


Jordan- 1 person- $219,000
 Burke- 2 people- $438,000


TOTAL -$1,752,000




(2) $200 PER SHIFT


4 people to be protected


Two security guards each except Jordan, Daley has three


8 people per shift


3 shifts a day


2 shifts fully staffed, night one less


16 people per day and 5 at night (one each and 2 for Daley)


7 days a week is 112 shifts


If guards earn $200/per shift


$22,400/week



TOTAL- $1, 164,800 year

(3) ANOTHER $200 PER SHIFT


16 hours in a day for 8 people


$3200 day shift


8 hours in a day for 4 people


$800 night shift


$4,000/day


TOTAL-$1,460,000

Even if we assume my salary projections are too low and the guards earn $100,000/year each, we still only get $3,504,000 being spent by the city at my highest calculation. So we are left dangling with the question, “Who is receiving protection with, at minimum, the extra million dollars?” Maybe the Sun-Times watchdogs can find out the answer to that.