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CITY HALL — Facing widespread opposition to his proposed $300 million property tax increase, Mayor Brandon Johnson confirmed his administration is “negotiating” with alderpeople who want to see the tax hike significantly decreased or scrapped entirely.
Johnson’s budget team met with 22 alderpeople over the weekend to discuss potential alternatives to the full property tax hike, including raising the garbage collection fee, using unallocated federal pandemic relief dollars, raising a tax on cloud computing and other proposals, according to the Sun-Times.
A senior mayoral aide also told the newspaper there would be “a significant decrease” to Johnson’s proposed property tax increase.
But when pressed by reporters during a press conference Tuesday — the first weekly press conference the mayor has promised to hold going forward — Johnson declined to share new numbers or additional details.
He instead cast himself as the “collaborator in chief” for bringing alderpeople into the conversation over how to close the city’s almost $1 billion budget gap for 2025.
“There was some good, robust debate. Thank you for elevating that those conversations are ongoing. I can say this, that the conversations have been very positive,” Johnson said.
“I think it would be premature for me to dictate what a number would be,” he later added.
The comments came days after a majority of alderpeople signed onto a call for a special council hearing to vote down the property tax hike ahead of any future budget negotiations. That meeting has been rescheduled from Wednesday morning to Thursday afternoon so alderpeople can attend the funeral of former Ald. William Beavers, who died last month.
Johnson pledged while running for mayor that he would not raise property taxes during his first term. But facing a pending $982 million budget hole, Johnson has said the $300 million hike is necessary to avoid mass layoffs at the Police Department, Fire Department and other key areas like facilities and sanitation.
Besides the tax hike, Johnson’s current budget proposal relies on a mix of new revenue, a surplus of tax-increment financing dollars, “operational efficiencies” at city departments and the elimination of more than 700 currently vacant city jobs, among other maneuvers.
Since the mayor’s budget address on Oct. 30, the property tax hike proposal has garnered significant opposition from almost every alderperson, ranging from progressive allies of the mayor to more conservative critics.
One idea some council members have proposed to avoid a property tax hike next year is skipping a $272 million advance pension payment the city plans to make in 2025.
While not legally required, Johnson and his budget officials continue to argue the payment is a necessary proactive measure to save the city significant money over the next few decades.
“We don’t view the supplemental payment as really a supplement. It is what we need to put into our pension funds to stabilize them and stop the bleeding,” Chicago’s chief financial officer Jill Jaworski said Tuesday. “The city has always paid what the state required … but what was required is not sufficient. It’s not really what we need to put in.”
While Johnson on Tuesday did not comment on new revenue ideas being discussed to avoid the property tax hike, he reiterated he would not support any layoffs of city workers.
He also once again called on the Illinois General Assembly to institute more “progressive” revenue schemes and said he supported instituting a graduated income tax that would tax wealthier residents at higher rates than others.
Billed as the “Fair Tax” by Gov. JB Pritzker and other supporters, that proposal was ultimately voted down in 2020 during a statewide referendum.
Johnson said despite the city’s budget woes and significant political hurdles he’s facing in the City Council, he remains committed to funding youth employment, mental health resources and other parts of his agenda.
“The structural damage that has been done to this city has left us in the type of financial peril that we are experiencing,” Johnson said. “These ideas that are on the table, our team will continue to explore and listen to. My values are clear. We don’t compromise them. We are negotiating details within those values.”
Speaking after the mayor’s press conference, Southwest Side Ald. Matt O’Shea (19th), who is backing this week’s special council meeting to defeat the property tax hike, said he’s confident his colleagues will vote against the increase. Thirty-one of the council’s 50 alderpeople have signed the letter calling for the meeting, and O’Shea said he’s talked to six more who are expected to vote down the tax hike.
“I don’t see how it’s not voted down,” O’Shea said.
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