Chicago mayor to propose property tax hike to close $1 billion budget gap
CHICAGO (CBS) – Mayor Brandon Johnson will announce his new budget proposal on Wednesday and, with it, his plan to try to bridge an almost $1 billion budget gap.
CBS News Chicago learned the mayor may backtrack on one of his most popular campaign promises to do so.
Johnson promised repeatedly during his mayoral campaign not to raise property taxes, but some aldermen are getting one-on-one briefings from the mayor's team, who said that is the way forward. It was unclear as of Tuesday just how much that increase could be.
"I'm the only candidate for mayor who won't raise your property taxes," Johnson said in a campaign ad.
That promise, sources told CBS News Chicago, seems to be on track to last only one year.
At last year's budget address to City Council members, Johnson touted new investments including the relaunching of the city's Department of Environment, adding a Department of Technology and Innovation, and proposing almost $5 million more for mental health services.
This year, the mayor will try to balance a budget with a nearly $1 billion deficit with a proposed property tax increase. His team briefed some aldermen on the idea, but not others ahead of his budget address to the City Council on Wednesday.
It's unclear just how much property taxes would be increased.
"He doesn't seem to have a lot of serious cost-saving measures in mind, and so he has to do that through new revenue, and a billion-dollar property tax increase ... he couldn't get that past City Council," said David Greising, president of the Better Government Association.
Greising noted the automatic property tax increase former Mayor Lori Lightfoot left for Johnson, which was tied to inflation. He declined to implement it.
"That would have brought in extra revenue that the city could have used last year, could have maybe rolled over into this year, and so that wasn't available to him," Greising said.
Johnson has tried to establish new sources of revenue, like a tax on properties sold for more than $1 million, but that was voted down.
Experts say a property tax alone, though, wouldn't be enough to close the budget gap. Johnson is expected to say more on Wednesday about how he plans to close that deficit and get a majority of City Council members on board by the end of the year.
However, the mayor's budget proposal will seemingly avert a clash with labor—and will not reduce city staff.
"This is a moment of burden sharing," said Joe Ferguson, president of the Civic Federation.
Ferguson said the pain of balancing the budget should be felt by everyone. Furloughs and eliminating vacancies are just some of the solutions he proposed.
"Starting with property taxes suggests that this isn't a burden-sharing moment," Ferguson said. "That's going to leave us in even worse shape for next year."
Some aldermen have been briefed on the budget proposal that Mayor Johnson will introduce here tomorrow, while others say they have been left in the dark. Ultimately, the Mayor will need a majority of the City Council to get on board to pass his budget.
Ald. Timmy Knudsen (43rd) said the residents of his Lincoln Park ward already face high property taxes—which will continue to rise with the current reassessment.
"There's just not an appetite for a property tax increase," Knudsen said.
With a new property tax increase now on the table, all homeowners could be asked to take on even more.
"Naturally we need to figure out where we can make cuts to bring the budget back closer to where it was before pandemic," Knudsen said.
Once the budget is introduced Wednesday morning, it must be passed by the end of the year.
