CITY HALL | Aide says firms won't get paid until budget crisis over

The Daley administration has signed three more public relations contracts -- at $5 million apiece -- to supplement the highly- controlled message coming out of City Hall.

But mayoral press secretary Jacquelyn Heard insisted that not a penny will be paid to outside spin doctors until the city's budget crisis is over.

Heard said the contracts with Valerie Denney Communications, Better World Advertising and Metropolitan Group LLC were finalized in early October, "prior to the decision to issue a moratorium on these kinds of contracts."

Identical $5 million contracts with seven other firms -- including Jasculca/Terman and MK Communications, owned by longtime Democratic strategist Marilyn Katz -- prompted an outcry during the recent City Council budget hearings.

Aldermen called it an outrage at a time when Mayor Daley is laying off 929 city employees, eliminating 1,346 vacancies and reducing basic services, slowing police hiring and raising parking and amusement taxes and a laundry list of fees.

"When we're having the kinds of budget issues we are, it seemed like absolutely the right thing to do," Heard said, saying payments to outside public relations firms would be suspended "indefinitely."

"When you're trying to alert millions of people to hundreds of city programs, it's understandable that you need to go beyond the current level of staffing. But many of the other programs dialed back were also helpful and this is no different. You have to live within your means. Sometimes you have to make tough choices."

The hiring of outsider PR firms was particularly offensive to aldermen because every city department has at least one public information officer. That's in addition to the mayor's press office, with a staff of 15 and an annual budget of $1.2 million.

Daley also pays Dana Herring -- who serves as the mayor's maestro of message -- $12,500 a month, or $150,000 a year, out of his campaign fund.