Nearly every alderman in the Chicago City Council plans to take a raise next year, even as the city faces a daunting budget crisis.
Mayor Brandon Johnson, however, plans to break from the 48 out of 50 aldermen who will accept the automatic bump tied to inflation. The 2025 municipal budget Johnson proposed Wednesday revealed he opted out.
“Believe it or not, I don’t do this job for a check,” said Johnson, who last year decided to take a $4,742 raise for 2024, when asked about the decision.
“I just think it is important right now that we focus our attention on how we deal with the structural damage that has taken place over the course of decades,” he said.
The mayor is set to make $221,052 next year.
“What I am thinking more about is the fact that we have sold off assets in this city, and the financial ruins of this city are quite severe,” Johnson said. “Moving forward, we are going to fix the problem that we inherited and we are going to invest in people.”
Johnson proposed a $300 million property tax increase Wednesday as the centerpiece of his plan to close a budget gap estimated at $1 billion. He pitched the tax hike to the City Council as the best way to avoid laying off city workers and cutting services in a difficult budget year.
But while Johnson chose to forego the raise, the aldermen who he must now win over to pass a budget made a different decision: 48 took it, the budget proposal shows.
Only Alds. Byron Sigcho-Lopez, 25th, and Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez, 33rd, decided not to take the raise, according to the mayor’s spending plan. The 48 aldermen who took the pay bump will see a 4.1% jump on their pay stubs. The highest paid 29 aldermen will earn $152,016 next year, while the lowest paid alderman will earn $123,024.
The raises are tied to the consumer price index. They are given automatically, but aldermen are able to choose to instead continue receiving their current salary. Aldermanic salaries vary because some members have turned down past pay hikes, though the vast majority have accepted the bumps in recent years.
The 48 aldermen took the raises even as Johnson did not seek similar proposed budget increases for their ward offices. Budgets for office staff, interns and aldermanic expenses rose by less than 1% in the mayor’s plan, an increase below the rate of inflation.
Sigcho-Lopez cited the city’s dire financial straits when asked why he did not take the raise. The budget crisis shows that the wealthiest in Chicago and Illinois must pay more, he added.
“It is important that we all pay our fair share,” Sigcho-Lopez said. “I always believe in leading by example. It is important that we as public servants do more to make sure it is not the most vulnerable paying for balancing budgets.”
Rodriguez-Sanchez said her decision was a “symbolic gesture” at a tough moment for the city. “Everybody should get raises … but this is a really tough moment and I don’t think it makes a huge difference for me,” she said. “We should commit to saving money.”
City Clerk Anna Valencia and Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin also accepted raises. Both elected officials will jump to a salary of $171,426 – up 28.4% from their 2022 salaries due in large part to an extra large raise backed by former Mayor Lori Lightfoot – after making $164,628 this year.
