Facing certain defeat, Mayor Brandon Johnson postpones Chicago city budget vote
CHICAGO (CBS) — Mayor Brandon Johnson called off Friday's 2025 city budget vote, after his revised spending plan relying on a property tax hike and other increased fines and fees without significant spending cuts faced certain defeat.
After the meeting, Johnson acknowledged he does not yet have the votes to pass his $17.3 billion spending plan.
It was another chaotic day at City Hall as shouts erupted in the City Council chamber when the meeting was brought to an end after about 20 minutes, and recessed until Monday afternoon, before any action was taken on either the budget or other routine legislative items on the agenda.
At least one person in the City Council gallery was handcuffed and escorted out as they shouted over the Council's vote to end the meeting and return on Monday.
The Johnson administration and City Council have until Dec. 31 to get a budget deal done, or face an unprecedented city government shutdown.
Despite spending weeks tweaking his original budget plan, the mayor has yet to get the votes he needs to pass it. He would need either 26 votes, or could cast a tie-breaking vote to approve his budget if he can get the support of 25 alders.
"The reality is, we're very close, but we're still not there yet," Johnson said after Friday's council meeting.
Nonetheless, Johnson said he's "optimistic" he can get a deal done by Monday.
"If you're asking me if [the vote is] going to be close, yes, it's going to be close," he said.
But many aldermen are losing faith that will happen, after the mayor has repeatedly failed to corral the votes he needs, despite multiple revisions to his $17.3 billion spending plan for 2025.
"I hope after today, come back Monday, I hope something magical in the air just appears, because right now we're going to be in the same position that we were," said Ald. Monique Scott (24th).
Scott is part of a group of 15 of the council's relatively more conservative members who have demanded deeper cuts to city spending before turning to tax hikes. They have said Johnson's budget is bloated, and have criticized him for standing in the way of reducing government spending.
"The mayor had to abandon, yet again, an irresponsible budget," said Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd). "The city of Chicago does not have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem."
Facing a nearly $1 billion budget shortfall for 2025, Johnson originally proposed a $300 million property tax hike as part of his budget plan, but the City Council unanimously rejected his proposal. He then reduced his property tax proposal to $150 million, but in face of continued resistance from most alders, he has whittled down his proposed property tax hike to $68.5 million.
It's clear that's still not low enough to win over the majority of the City Council, despite narrowly passing two key committees earlier this week.
"This budget process has been lazy. It's the same levers being pulled over and over - property taxes, fines, fees, TIF surpluses," said Ald. Gilbert Villegas (36th).
Even some of the mayor's more progressive allies have balked at including any property tax hike in the budget.
One alternative which seems to appeal to both Johnson's opponents and supporters is eliminating some of the more than 1,000 vacant positions at the Chicago Police Department.
"There's gonna be enough vacancies for us to be able to trim away to pass a budget that's balanced," said Ald. Jessie Fuentes (26th), a member of the City Council's Progressive Caucus, who is typically a Johnson ally, but has said she's opposed to any property tax hike.
Reilly and other more moderate members of the City Council have said they're willing to consider eliminating Police Department vacancies, but only civilian positions – not uniformed officers – or positions that can't realistically be filled in 2025.
Johnson, who repeatedly has called himself the city's "collaborator-in-chief" during the lengthy budget fight, has vowed to listen to suggestions from every City Council member, but his harshest critics have said if that were true, a deal would have been done by now.
"He's collaborated himself into a budget impasse, and had there been any level of collaboration we probably could have avoided this situation," Reilly said.
While the mayor said Friday he's willing to consider cutting CPD vacancies, he stood firm in his opposition to layoffs.
Johnson was asked if he would ever change his mind on that if it meant coming to an agreement on a balanced budget.
"If you're asking me if I'm okay with people losing their job, no; and I don't know anybody who is, by the way. Now, there are individuals that have brought ideas to the forefront, and were going to look at all of them," he said.
As it stands, the mayor's current budget plan includes:
- A $68.5 million property tax increase.
- A $128.1 million from increase on the city's tax on cloud computing services.
- A $12.9 million tax increase on streaming and cable TV services.
- A $11.3 million increase in the tax on parking garages and valet parking services.
- An $8.1 million increase in the congestion surcharge on ride-hailing trips that start or end downtown.
- A $5.2 million increase on the tax on checkout bags from 7 cents to 10 cents per bag.
- $11.4 million in additional revenue from new speed cameras.
- $3.1 million in cuts from the Department of Fleet and Facilities Management.
- $13.1 million in cuts from the city's general finance fund by reducing the amount going to pay down existing debt.
- $74 million in cuts from federal COVID-19 relief funds the mayor had planned to use to finance a guaranteed basic income program and small business assistance programs.
Some of Johnson's opponents have proposed nixing increases in funding to some of his key programs. His budget plan includes $52 million for the One Summer Chicago program for youth employment initiatives, including $20 million in funding to increase the total number of job slots by 2,000, for a total of 30,000 jobs.
Scott said alders calling for more spending cuts are willing to eliminate the mayor's proposed expansion, and keep the summer jobs program where it is.
"We're just trying to keep it to a halt. When you have a deficit, this is not a corporation that we're running, we are public servants," Scott said.
The mayor faces an incredibly uphill battle to get a deal done over the weekend. Many alders said they're concerned a few days won't be enough time for them to properly review any additional changes to the mayor's budget plan, and they're really frustrated with where the negotiations stand.
"We want to go through everything with a fine-tooth comb, but reconvening on Monday's not going to give us enough time," said Ald. Nicole Lee (11th).
Chicago has never before seen a government shutdown. If no budget deal is reached by Dec. 31, the mayor and his budget team said they won't be able to pay city employees to keep working in the new year.
