29 Council members sought to get Chicago to live within its means

By any measure, Chicago faces serious fiscal challenges. A structural deficit, rising pension obligations, and pressure on working families have left little room for error by Chicago’s leadership.

Yet when Mayor Brandon Johnson unveiled his fiscal year 2026 budget proposal, many members of the City Council were confronted with a troubling reality: They were being asked to approve a nearly $18 billion spending plan without significant efficiencies, without involvement in its development and without answers to basic fiscal questions. At the same time, Mayor Johnson pushed policies like the head tax on businesses to penalize employers for putting people to work and placing Chicago closer toward the end of a financial cliff. This approach lacked transparency while ignoring altogether the concept of trying to live within our means.

Late last year, 29 members of the City Council created the Budget Accountability Coalition to provide new leadership on the budget and other issues. While many of us respect Mayor Johnson and share his desire to improve the city, Chicago’s long-term success depends on honest budgeting, fiscal responsibility, economic growth and collaboration to get that done.

Our coalition built on a new direction from the mayor’s budget with different principles: no head tax on jobs, make full pension payments, implement operational efficiencies, avoid borrowing for routine operating expenses, and pursue structural solutions that strengthen the city’s financial foundation.

In last year’s alternative budget, we pushed for adoption of the necessary options from the Ernst & Young Efficiencies report on improving Chicago’s governance — a report paid for by taxpayers and that identified over $1 billion in efficiencies. All but a few million in efficiencies were rejected by Mayor Johnson in his budget.

Rather than asking taxpayers to shoulder all of the ever-increasing cost of running Chicago, city leadership must first demonstrate to taxpayers that we are operating within our means.

Coalition members have worked to lead the city forward and will continue to do so over the next few years.

In the budget, we doubled down on funding priorities important to Chicago families, including youth jobs programs. We worked to preserve core services, protecting taxpayers, supporting economic growth and strengthening Chicago’s financial outlook. We will also continue to press for efficiencies that other major American cities have already adopted to improve their fiscal state and avoid further economic distress.

Governing our city requires making responsible choices today to avoid bigger problems tomorrow. We must also prioritize transparency over secrecy, efficiency over waste, growth over taxation, and partnership over constant division. Chicago’s fiscal challenges did not emerge overnight, and they will not be solved in a single budget cycle. Budgets in years to come are expected to present even greater obstacles.

Meeting these challenges will require honest conversations among leaders and with taxpayers, and a willingness to put the city’s long-term interests ahead of purely political considerations.

That is why the Budget Accountability Coalition came together — to create a more sustainable future for taxpayers, for working families and to all of the people we represent across the city of Chicago.