A vote on Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson's $17.3 billion spending plan for next year has been postponed until at least Monday after weeks of severe headwinds that the city's mayor's team decided they couldn't overcome just yet.
The delay pushes the city closer to the Dec. 31 deadline to pass a budget and increases the risk of entering the uncharted territory of a government shutdown — although Johnson tried to shake off fears of that possibility at a news conference Friday afternoon.
“The reality is we are very close, but we're not there yet… I remain very optimistic that we will agree a balanced budget before the end of the year,” Johnson said, but he also warned that failure to do so could mean halting services or paying workers. City. “We are not Congress. We are not minting money. If there is no budget by the end of the year, there will be no appropriations to continue services.”
The budget scheduled for a vote on Friday was the mayor's third attempt to present a proposal that could satisfy at least 26 City Council members. The main sticking point has been a politically unpopular property tax hike that Johnson said was needed to avoid layoffs or cuts amid a budget deficit approaching $1 billion. The current proposal includes an increase of $68.5 million, a far cry from the $300 million increase that Johnson initially proposed and then backed away from.
I give birth. Budget opponents who are unhappy with Johnson “just want to be opposed,” said 49th Ward Maria Hadden, a progressive who would have voted “yes” on the budget on Friday.
“They resent him,” she said. “I think some people on the council are kind of parading through — if you want to go that route — things that they feel like he hasn't compromised enough, or he hasn't talked to them enough, or they feel disrespected or they feel like he's not listening.” .
But she noted that opposition to this budget proposal extends across the political spectrum, including from within Johnson's progressive wing. Haden ultimately blamed the delay on the fact that “Fifth Floor couldn't get the hangers together.”
I give birth. Jessie Fuentes, a progressive ally of Johnson, said she has a “moral obligation” to working-class 26th Ward residents not to raise property taxes. Fuentes is pressing the mayor to instead cut nearly 1,100 vacant police positions from the budget, which health care advocates estimate could save nearly $170 million, enough to forego a property tax increase.
“There is money to ensure that we can represent working families and not have to raise taxes on them,” Fuentes said. “And there will be enough vacancies that we can reduce them to pass a balanced budget.”
But Hadden said Fuentes introduced the amendment to cut those vacancies from the budget too late — just days ago. It is unclear whether Johnson will consider the amendment or whether it could be passed.
After the vote was postponed, some of the more conservative council members held a news conference to once again push the mayor to cut services or find more efficiencies to avoid a property tax increase. The city mayor ruled out cuts to services such as garbage collection or street cleaning.
I give birth. Brendan Riley, 42nd District, said reducing police vacancies could be “part of the conversation” if they are not in sworn officer positions.
“We have to focus on civilian positions, and any position that can't realistically be filled in the next fiscal year, we can talk about that,” Reilly said. “I can tell you that most of the people here today are 100 percent pro-public safety and pro-police, but this is part of the conversation.”
Johnson did not say whether he had already considered the specific proposal to reduce police vacancies in his initial budget proposal, or whether he thought Police Superintendent Larry Snelling would approve that plan. He said he would look into the matter over the weekend, and joked that it wouldn't be hard to find support for the idea — which he attributed to Reilly — from progressives on the council.
I give birth. Gilbert Villegas, 36th District, rebuked the administration for delaying the vote on Friday. He believes the budget proposal should be returned to committee, not negotiated behind closed doors over the weekend.
He added: “You will make an amendment to the budget worth $68 million, and not explain it to council members.” Where will you make up this difference? said Villegas, who has argued against property tax increases himself in favor of reductions and efficiencies.
“There is a lot of room for negotiation, and unfortunately, the administration does not want to negotiate,” Villegas said.
Johnson and City Attorney Jeff Levine said the current plan is to work around the clock over the weekend and pull the proposal back for a vote on Monday, without sending any amendments through the committee.
“We can take care of it on Monday,” Levine said. “Rules allow real-time adjustments to items currently on the virtual margin.”
Johnson's team made several concessions on its initial budget released in October. To compensate for the smaller property tax increase and with few progressive tax options to rely on, the Johnson administration relied on cutting spending by an additional $90 million and raising $256 million in new revenue through a slew of other taxes and fees.
Taxes on everything from plastic checkout bags to streaming services and parking would be increased under the current proposal. But the final budget specifically excludes previously proposed increases to the city's alcohol tax and trash collection fees after City Council opposition.
The budget also reallocates $74 million in federal pandemic relief funds that were programmed for community initiatives — a move budget officials previously resented as a one-time solution. One program that has been cut is $31 million for a pilot program for a guaranteed basic income that Johnson was expected to relaunch to issue a second round of $500 payments to low-income residents.
Hadden said that although she did not like to see these cuts, they allowed for a smaller property tax increase, so she won. But she added that she was uncomfortable with the idea of Johnson holding a tie-breaking vote on the budget — which would have happened had the administration gone ahead with the vote on Friday.
“This is a collaborative exercise in consensus building, right? It's important that the way we do things is just as important as what we do. Yes, we need to pass a balanced budget. We also need to work together as a city council to represent Chicagoans and their interests,” Haden said. “The best.”
She added that the city has to work together to address the “potentially huge challenges facing us after the inauguration of (Donald) Trump.”
The delay to the budget vote came on a day when the council was supposed to honor members of the transgender community who died or were killed as a result of anti-trans hate. The decision was not heard because the session was postponed immediately after it began.
Hadden noted that acrimony over the budget has distracted from those and other important issues in her ward.
“It was frustrating that the process was extended unnecessarily,” Hadden said. “Every day that we're here, we're not doing things in our wards…And I'm also not helping my constituents prepare for what's coming, whether it's the LGBT community, whether it's undocumented people or registered immigrants. We have a lot of concerns and worries and anxieties about what's going on, and I don't have the time to work on that, or to help people.
Maria Wilfel covers city politics and government for WBEZ.
