Budget recap

Yesterday afternoon the city council voted on the alternative city budget after weeks of negotiations and hearings. The final vote of 30-18 was the first time in decades that the council rejected a mayor’s budget. The council budget includes the full advanced pension payment (APP) that was started in the Lightfoot Administration and removed by the Johnson Administration as he rejected good financial practices and rating agencies’ advice to avoid an immediate and additional downgrade to City ratings. 

The coalition of aldermen came from wards spanning the entire city as well as all caucuses. The effort was done to prevent a shutdown of the City by Mayor Johnson and to prevent us from falling off a fiscal cliff. The Mayor now has 4 days left in which to declare his position- call for a veto and shut down the government of Chicago, or move on and help the city move forward.

I want to thank all the constituents who helped with the budget discussions and provided valuable expertise, input, and information on the dozens of departments and offices that operate within city government. I also want to thank the colleagues in council who worked with us to recraft the portion of the budget that we did change and improve on. 

While our efforts were only able to affect about 1.6% of the entire city budget of over $16 billion, we passed the appropriate APP, restored Johnson cuts to the libraries and youth programs, stopped the massive Head Tax that would further hurt the business community, both large and small, and added funding for gender based violence, and more.   

There is a long way to go to prevent the bad fiscal practices of the city over the past couple of years and get us moving on the right track. Ideas like the head tax are a complete disincentive to businesses moving to Chicago and for those here to grow their business. This head tax effort by the mayor also affects small, medium, and large businesses that interact throughout our manufacturing and service industries, to name a few. 

Months ago, some of us wanted to see the results of the taxpayer funded Ernst and Young report that provided the City with over $1 Billion in efficiencies and cuts that the City could undertake. We also had a second report undertaken by the Mayor that has paralleled the EY report, both recommending efficiencies and cuts that would help straighten out our government. Unlike other US Cities that went through the same process, were transparent and ended up implementing so many of the recommendations, this Administration hid the ball and fought back on the majority of the recommendations, even until the end of the Mayor’s speech yesterday. 

Our coalition recommended implementing more of the efficiencies and cuts once we were able to get the EY report and pieced together the data we were able to track down. We even testified to the need to change the direction and provided ample backup to our testimony in a four hour session. While some aldermen rejected the expertise backing up the testimony, much of which came from EY, and the mayors departments, we forged ahead with a plan to do what taxpayers need and demand reforms and changes in city spending and governing.

Debt collection was one of many areas that needed some truth shed on it. At no time did our coalition target poor people in the policy proposal to collect debt from those incurring tickets or fines from the CIty. That effort to distort the truth was shameful. We asked for guardrails around any debt collection and made sure uninformed colleagues knew that the city already collects debt, just not in an efficient way. At this time, there is over 

$8 billion in unpaid debt that is owed to the city. Over $1 billion has been added in the past two years. It would not take much to put guardrails in place to avoid problems with collecting debt, but the mayor rejected any attempts to use common sense on the debt issues. His own budget included over $110 million in debt collection to help close the deficit he created. 

In our plan, we ask the mayor and the budget office to go after the same people that the Administration protected this week. We also demanded that city and sister agency employees pay their debts first. Prospective city employees must pay all their debts to the city before being hired. Apparently, that same rule is no longer enforced by this Administration. Millions are owed to the city by CPS, CHA, CTA, and many more government agencies. 

The TIF surplus portion for CPS was always going to be included. Letters, websites, and commentary on the council floor that claimed the coalition was taking away school funding were simply lies. 

While we asked for some of the supplemental TIF surplus to be restored, the Mayor rejected the arguments of many aldermen who were angry about the Mayor unilaterally removing a billion in TIF surplus from dozens of TIF districts with no notice. The TIF sweep has wiped out dozens of projects being planned by aldermen throughout the city. The additional TIF sweeps undercut public infrastructure projects like affordable housing projects, roads, bridges, open space, and more. 

We need to be fiscally responsible; we need to spend taxpayers’ dollars for what they are -someone else’s hard-earned dollars funding the government for needs across the city. 

The openness and collaborative approach our coalition worked through did not include everything each individual alderman wanted, but the democratic process worked to bring 30 people to the table. The city, our residents, and businesses need a budget that works for all of them, not slogans and a non-transparent administration that hides the ball from taxpayers. It should be noted also that the business community, made up of small to large businesses, still bears the far greater weight of taxes in Chicago's budget. 


A yes vote on the alternative budget was needed to avoid a fiscal disaster, though we may still be too late to avoid yet another downgrade. It is still up to the Administration to follow through on better governing recommendations and work throughout the year to help balance the budget.

A Mayor Johnson veto now will lead to a shutdown that means chaos and more uncertainty for working families. We voted for an alternative so we can get this city growing again and back on the right track for all. Thank you for your consideration and support during this complex and long budget season. 

There are some good reads on the budget wrap, and on another note, a recap of the old parking meter deal on Planet Money.

I wish everyone a happy holiday season,