Mayor Brandon Johnson is now offering to eliminate a revised $68.5 million property tax increase and cut 10 jobs from the mayor’s office in hopes of ending Chicago’s marathon budget stalemate.
With just over two weeks to go before the Dec. 31 deadline that would trigger an unprecedented government shutdown, the Johnson administration spent Sunday briefing small groups of alderpersons on his latest offer.
It calls for:
• The twice-revised $68.5 million property tax increase to be eliminated altogether.
• $40 million in short-term borrowing, possibly using tax anticipation notes.
• $10 million in “cost recovery” by charging organizers of “ticketed events” for police and traffic services. Over the years, the city has attempted to recover costs from professional sports teams but failed miserably.
• $5 million in unspecified energy savings.
• $8 million in public safety cuts, presumably by eliminating police vacancies.
• $1 million in savings by eliminated 10 jobs from his own office budget. The mayor’s office budget has ballooned under Johnson and his predecessor, Lori Lightfoot.
• $2.8 million in savings by putting the city’s bloated bureaucracy on a diet by eliminating middle-management jobs in city departments, including deputy commissioners and their assistants.
The mayor still appears to be resisting any layoffs or furlough days.
Johnson’s original proposal of a $300 million tax hike was unanimously rejected by the City Council. The mayor’s subsequent offers to cut the increase in half — to $150 million — then settle for $68.5 million also fell at least seven votes short of the 26 required for passage.
It’s not at all clear whether the embattled mayor’s latest offer will be enough to get his $17.3 billion budget over the finish line.
Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd), Johnson’s hand-picked Public Safety Committee Chair, characterized the proposal as “tinkering at the margins.”
Hopkins said he doesn’t trust the sources of revenue Johnson hopes to lose to replace the $68.5 million property tax levy.
He was particularly troubled by the proposed, $40 million borrowing to balance a budget already precariously balanced with one-time revenues, including savings generated by a massive refinancing.
“And any kind of short-term borrowing that they think they can do, we’re talking about well more than 20% carrying charge. We’ll be downgraded for that,” Hopkins said, referring to the all-important bond rating that determines city borrowing costs.
“Tax anticipation notes to balance a budget in a one- or two-year payback schedule? That’s crying uncle. That’s just admitting that we are out of ideas.”
Johnson deserves credit for “doing one thing we asked him to do” by holding the line on property taxes as he promised to do during the mayoral campaign. But that “doesn’t automatically mean” he is prepared to support a budget that still includes “very little cutting,” Hopkins said.
“This is barely denting the surface” of a city budget that has at least 30% more full-time employees than it did pre-pandemic, he said. “We have loaded up this city with more new employees — and they’re everywhere. Many of them were funded with ARPA funds. The ARPA funds are gone. We cannot bake them into the budget going forward. It’s not sustainable.”
Southwest Side Ald. Marty Quinn (13th), one of the mayor’s most outspoken Council critics, said the mayor’s latest offer doesn’t “do enough to get the structure right” in preparation for even bigger shortfalls next year and the year after.
“We have to continue to press the envelope on right-sizing,” Quinn said.
“As a Council, we’re just scratching the surface to gain our independence. Let’s continue to push the envelope. We’re solidifying ourselves as co-equal.”
Ald. Brendan Reilly and other members of the “Common Sense Caucus” address reporters in the hallway outside the City Council chambers on Friday after the Council recessed for the day. Alderpersons are scheduled to return at 1 p.m. Monday, by which time Mayor Brandon Johnson hopes to revise his budget enough to win Council approval. Johnson called off a vote scheduled for Friday after it became clear he didn’t have the votes needed for it to pass.
Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times
Progressive Caucus Co-Chair Andre Vasquez (40th) and Maria Hadden (48th) refused to comment while awaiting their budget briefings. Ald. Walter Burnett (27th), the Council’s dean and vice mayor who also serves as Johnson’s de-facto floor leader, did not return phone calls or text messages.
Hopkins said he’s uncertain the mayor’s latest offer would get 26 votes. The Council recessed its Friday meeting and is expected to reconvene at 1 p.m. Monday.
“So many of the Progressive colleagues seem to just hang their hat on the property tax increase. They didn’t want to be on the hook for it. Now, they’re not on the hook for it,” Hopkins said.
“The mayor’s trying to cut deals [by saying], `We took away the property tax increase. Here’s your field house. Here’s whatever else you wanted.’ So he may get to close that gap” and pass a budget.
Johnson had called off a vote scheduled for Friday when, after days of frenzied lobbying, he still had only 19 rock-solid votes.
A raucous day at City Hall Friday included a packed hallway news conference by members calling themselves the “Common Sense Caucus,” demanding more cuts.
“We’re going to tell the departments, ‘Here’s your budget from 2020, plus the cost of inflation going forward. That’s your number. Figure it out,’” said Ald. Anthony Beale (9th).
Downtown Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd) said he could even be willing to consider eliminating Chicago Police Department vacancies. That funding for vacant CPD jobs often is used to cover overtime.
Cutting them this year “is a fair compromise to allow us to plug this gap with the implicit understanding that we could come back and restore those [police] positions next year,” Reilly said.
The search for more votes is all but certain to require the mayor to scrap other ideas he had tried to save, such as spending $50 million to create 2,000 more summer youth jobs or making an additional $270 million payment toward city pensions. Canceling that payment likely would hurt the city’s credit rating.
But so could a protracted budget battle.
Civic Federation President Joe Ferguson has estimated all it would take to get Johnson’s $17.3 billion budget over the finish line is $150 million worth of cuts.
That may sound like a lot, but, Ferguson noted, the city’s budget is 47% higher than it was pre-pandemic, not counting pension costs.
“To say there is no option in the way of … workforce reductions [and] shared sacrifice is just not playing ball with folks that are trying to come to some form of common ground.”