The co-chair of the City Council’s Progressive Caucus scoffed Monday at Mayor Brandon Johnson’s claim that he has brokered a deal to cut his resoundingly rejected $300 million property tax increase in half.
Ald. Andre Vasquez (40th) characterized the negotiating session he participated in more than a week ago as the “great beginning of a conversation” and a healthy “exchange of ideas.” But, there were no agreements made or commitments given.
“There was nothing landed on. There was no $150 million [in cuts]. There were ideas on how to bring it down without anyone agreeing to anything,” Vasquez said.
“I don’t understand this idea that the mayor has something that he’s brokered. We literally had that meeting [a week ago] Saturday. The first proposal he had was voted down and there have not been substantive meetings to land any commitments since then.”
He added: “The mayor presented himself as the collaborator-in-chief, [but] there’s not a lot of collaboration here. … If he’s the collaborator-in-chief that he says he is, it’s not about grabbing the steering wheel. We’re all in the car together figuring it out.”
The Chicago Sun-Times had reported on Sunday night that top mayoral aides have brokered a deal to cut the $300 million property tax hike in half, and that negotiations were continuing.
The largest chunk of new revenue — $128 million — will come from raising the personal property lease tax on cloud computing to 11%.
Another $14 million would be squeezed out of “redundancies and efficiencies” in administrative costs tied to the spending programs bankrolled by federal pandemic relief programs in 2026, though that would be done without laying off employees or disrupting programs.
And the final $10 million would be generated by raising the tax on streaming services from 9% to 10.25%. That would bring it up to the same level as the combined sales tax.
Alderpersons Anthony Beale (9th) and Marty Quinn (13th) were prime movers behind last week’s special Council meeting that culminated in the unanimous vote rejecting the $300 million property tax increase.
Neither will stop at just cutting the increase in half. They accused Johnson of avoiding spending cuts by “looking for revenue” instead. Quinn said it would be “very difficult” for Johnson to get 26 votes for “any property tax increase,” let alone $150 million.
Even Ald. Pat Dowell (3rd), chair of the Finance Committee, argued Johnson can “go deeper” and said a $150 million property tax increase is “not something I can support.”
Vasquez couldn’t agree more.
“We need to see their homework. … The fact that they were able to bring the property tax increase down to half in a number of days [shows] we need to be dubious of their math,” he said.
“I don’t know what it lands on. But you can’t even say what number until you’ve done the full process of talking to the whole Council and that just hasn’t occurred. … They’re just putting things out in the press to say that they’ve done something as opposed to talking to all members of City Council to see what they would support or would not support.”
Ald. Marty Quinn (13th) speaks during a Chicago City Council meeting in September.
Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times
Kennedy Bartley, Johnson’s chief of external affairs, insisted she has 26 votes for the latest plan, with negotiations continuing to reduce it further.
“I’m not gonna share our roll call with the press because negotiations are under way. We’re still looking at [alternatives] but as things emerge and we land them internally, we will begin to socialize it because that’s how I believe the process should go.”
Bartley said she called Vasquez over the weekend but couldn’t reach him.
“You can’t talk to people who don’t pick up the phone,” she said. But she was unfazed by the criticism from Vazquez, even if Johnson needs votes from Vazquez and other Progressive Caucus members to get his $17.3 billion budget over the finish line.
“We’re gonna continue to collaborate as we’ve been doing. There are always gonna be people who detract from that. It doesn’t deter us from the mission because the people of Chicago didn’t elect us to argue with Andre Vasquez. They elected us to make investments, which we’re doing, protect workers, which we’re doing, and make fiscally responsible decisions, which we’re doing.”
Some Council members oppose a property tax increase of any size. Vasquez, for one, would support a return to the automatic escalator, which locks in annual property tax increases at the rate of inflation or 5%, whichever is less. The escalator was enacted under Mayor Lori Lightfoot, but she later ignored it, as did Johnson in his first budget.
“You’re talking about a deficit that’s going to continue growing year over year. If you try to do something this year that feels easier to stomach, it’s gonna be that much harder next year,” Vasquez said.
“There’s a case to be made for figuring out what right looks like that would include some property tax increase.”