When lukewarm applause followed Mayor Brandon Johnson’s budget address Wednesday, it was clear what had sucked the enthusiasm from City Council chambers.
The foundation of Johnson’s $17.3 billion spending plan: a $300 million property tax increase.
That tax hike instantly led a large group of aldermen to outright oppose the mayor’s budget proposal and say their constituents cannot bear the cost. Others expressed less final, but still serious concerns about the recommendation.
Even key Johnson allies flagged the property tax proposal as a non-starter, foreshadowing a tough fight for the mayor to get 26 members of the council to back the budget by the end of the year.
Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez, 25th, one of the mayor’s staunchest supporters, told a crowd of reporters he flatly opposes Johnson’s “regressive” property tax proposal minutes after the mayor’s speech ended.
“A property tax increase for us is something that we in our community cannot afford,” Sigcho-Lopez said. The Southwest Side Pilsen neighborhood he represents has seen soaring property assessments and bills, and gentrification is among his chief concerns. “We cannot afford to push people out of the city.”
Ald. Felix Cardona, 31st, dragged a yellow highlighter across a printout of Johnson’s speech as the mayor spoke. He didn’t like what he heard, he told the Tribune.
Cardona and 13 other aldermen sent Johnson a letter earlier this week declaring they would not support any budget that includes a property tax increase, among several other demands. Johnson needs to further cut costs before adding a tax that “people are not going to be able to afford,” the Northwest Side alderman said.
“He says he wants to keep Black and Latinos in their neighborhoods. This is not going to keep them,” Cardona said. “I do not think he understands the consequences.”
As notable as the rush by some to oppose Johnson’s proposed property tax was the cautious tone many of his closest allies struck.
Progressive Caucus co-chair Ald. Maria Hadden, 49th, praised the mayor for avoiding layoffs, but said she would need to learn how the property tax increase would affect people in her North Side ward and take those findings back to them. Though the mayor’s office said the average property tax bill would increase by 4.8%, the actual amount could vary widely depending on fresh values from the county assessor, appeals, and how much other governments raise via their own levies.
“I need to see numbers,” she said. “I’m already dealing with a crisis of housing displacement because people can’t afford their rents, and I’m losing neighbors kind of left and right.”
Finance Committee chair Ald. Pat Dowell said her focus will be reducing the property tax hike. But the city is in a “precarious fiscal state,” and property taxes are the most reliable source of money, she said.
“It is a tough budget, and I want to see what the balance is,” Dowell, 3rd, said.
Dowell praised Johnson’s decision to continue making advance payments to Chicago’s struggling pension funds, a move that began under former Mayor Lori Lightfoot. Sigcho-Lopez, meanwhile, proposed cutting the $272 million advance payment in Johnson’s budget plan as an alternative to the property tax hike.
But Johnson’s deal also won a few supporters. His budget chair, Ald. Jason Ervin, 28th, argued Johnson’s proposal is the best option because Chicagoans would rather face the property tax hike than deal with service cuts.
“Everybody wants to get to heaven, nobody wants to die,” Ervin said.
As Johnson’s property tax hike struggled to gain traction in the City Council, it also raised troubled eyebrows outside City Hall. Gov. JB Pritzker took a swipe at it Wednesday morning.
“There is stress in the city budget they’ve got to figure out,” Pritzker said. “But I would like to see some recognition that property taxes already are a burden.”
The mayor is trying to “over rely on property taxes,” said Dian Palmer, president of the Service Employees International Union Local 73. The union represents many city workers — who avoided layoffs in Johnson’s plan — and is a top contributor to Johnson’s campaign fund. But Palmer nonetheless criticized the mayor’s budget while calling for Illinois to “make millionaires pay their fair share” in taxes.
“Chicago is now balancing its budget on the backs of working families,” she said.
The proposal also drew criticism from both Joe Ferguson, president of the business-backed fiscal watchdog the Civic Federation, and Jack Lavin, the President and CEO of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce. The two were dismayed Johnson did not identify other efficiencies or other cuts before resorting to a property tax hike, they said.
“Residents and businesses are already struggling with persistently high property assessments, inflation, and costly regulations,” Lavin said in a Wednesday release. “We cannot afford to let Chicago residents and the businesses that employ them shoulder the entire burden without also looking toward shared sacrifice, more effective cuts to spending, and commonsense efficiencies.”
Ferguson re-upped the Civic Federation’s call to pause supplemental pension payments in lieu of a property tax hike and said it seemed there was virtually no consideration of furloughs for city workers. The cost of balancing the budget should be more widely shared, he argued, even if that means some cuts to the city’s workforce.
“For all the criticism of Rahm Emanuel over the years, I’m fairly certain in this particular situation he’d have called labor into the room, all together, locked the door, bought pizza and said we’re not leaving this room,” Ferguson said.
Now it’s up to the City Council to push back, Ferguson said. “It has an enormous amount of leverage and power in order to shape that budget.”