Chicago is often called “The City that Works,” but according to a report by Chicago Inspector General David Hoffman, that title should not necessarily include the city’s sanitation department.

It only takes a quick review of the day’s headlines to know it’s going to be another bad, bad day for Mayor Daley, who is on the cusp of releasing a city budget that is an estimated $420 million in the red.

Chicago Sun-Times Editorial: Trashing the taxpayers

For years, the Daley administration has used city jobs in Streets and Sanitation to reward political workers. The bloating comes with a price, and now we know it — about $21 million a year. That, according to the inspector general’s report, is the total when you add up the money spent on the city wages for no work, plus other lost savings.

That’s $21 million Chicagoans pay every year for nothing.

Chicago Tribune: Your tax dollars at work

Like his father, he has bought labor peace during his 19-year tenure, in part by not demanding an end to such wasteful nonsense as the three-man garbage crew; many suburbs deploy one-man trucks. Now comes elaborate proof that the mayor’s garbage operation is a costly scam on taxpayers… With budget dollars tight and taxpayers furious with every level of government, maybe Daley finally will attack systemic cheating like this rip-off by garbage workers. He’ll never have a better excuse to downsize these three-man crews.

Shockingly (NOT!), union leaders are already crying foul, offering up a conspiracy theory that claims Mayor Daley is in cahoots with the Inspector General in an attempt to justify cutting sanitation jobs before Daley’s big red budget release.

Chicago Sun-Times: Garbage crews ‘paid to do nothing’ city surveillance finds

Lou Phillips, business manager for Laborers Union Local 1001, said it’s no accident that Hoffman issued his report at a time when hundreds of laborers are targeted for layoffs to ease a budget crunch.

“Sounds a little bit like a witch hunt to me. They’re laying off 1,080 people. Over 300 are members of Local 1001. Read between the lines,” he said. “It could be a downed truck. It could be between loads. There’s a number of different situations” that could cause down time.

Downed truck. Truck between loads. Right, right, right…

Read the full report for yourself- and prepare to be disgusted.