Bills and receipts from Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson's administration have raised new questions about lavish spending as the city faces a nearly $1 billion budget shortfall.
Documents uncovered by local news station NBC 5 reveal that in the grip of a financial crisis, the city spent more than $80,000 to redesign and renovate an office at the Chicago Cultural Center for First Lady Stacey Johnson.
“Invoices and receipts, obtained by NBC 5 Investigates through a series of Freedom of Information Act requests, show that requests for work orders began in February and continued through August of this year to renovate and redecorate Room 306 at the Chicago Cultural Center,” the report said.
Electricians, carpenters and painters on the city's payroll were contracted to do the work, according to an invoice from the city's Department of Fleet and Facilities Management, also known as 2FM, NBC 5 reported. The workers got more than 350 hours of work at a cost of more than $25,000.
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Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson's office is facing scrutiny after the city spent $80,000 renovating First Lady Johnson's office. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
Another invoice reportedly shows the city paid more than $43,000 for furniture, including a $2,200 office chair and a $4,400 desk labeled “First Lady's Desk” in the document. The city spent another $4,600 on a desk for an employee and more than $8,300 on two club chairs, according to the outlet.
The bill was dated August 13 and is due September 12, NBC 5 reported.
Mayor Johnson's office did not respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
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Under the Johnson administration, Chicago faces a budget deficit of about $1 billion in 2025. (Vincent Alban/Getty Images)
Faced with the bills and asked to defend the city's spending, Johnson told NBC 5, “So, the Cultural Center has always been a VIP location; every first lady has office space there. Renovating my office or any other office is the norm. Our commitment to investing in people remains “It means investing in people.”
The mayor responded to follow-up questions about the optics of excessive spending as his administration considers laying off city workers to cut costs.
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Johnson was elected in 2023 as the preferred candidate of the left, on a platform of increasing spending on city services. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
“Buying an office is not going to change the structural financial damage that has been done for a very long time. That's why we're asking — and I mean that respectfully — we're asking much deeper questions than those. We're asking how can we make sure that the structural damage that's been done over decades — we redirect Rivers, if you will, to make sure we reach places where there is dry land, and that's what we're doing,” he said.
When NBC 5 pressed the issue, Johnson criticized the outlet's questions. “I've been mayor for 17 months, and you have a question about how I feel about optics? Just go back to the tape review. If I allowed my leadership to be based on someone's opinion of me, that would be a dereliction of duty. I never question In my position to invest in people, I'm not doing this for the optics;
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The mayor said he is focusing more on hiring young people for summer jobs, building affordable housing, making sure schools have counselors and social workers, as well as investing in Chicago's South and West sides.
But Johnson has not yet put forward a plan to close the city's projected $982 million budget gap.
