Politics
Johnson Slashes Proposed Property Tax Hike to $150M, Tells Alderpeople to Stop ‘Tantrums’
Video: The WTTW News Spotlight Politics team on Chicago’s budget negotiations and more of the day’s top stories. (Produced by Emily Soto)
Mayor Brandon Johnson said Tuesday his revised spending plan for 2025 relies on a property tax hike of $150 million but acknowledged that he has yet to finalize a deal that could win the approval of the Chicago City Council with just six weeks until the deadline to pass a budget.
The City Council voted unanimously Thursday to reject Johnson’s original proposal to hike property taxes by $300 million, sending negotiations over the city’s spending plan for 2025 back to square one.
While Johnson said talks during the weekend were “productive,” he also called on members of the City Council to do their job and stop throwing “tantrums.”
“It’s time to grow up,” Johnson said. “People in Chicago don’t have time for that.”
Even assuming the $150 million property tax hike is approved, Johnson declined to say specifically how the rest of the city’s budget gap would be filled, but once again ruled out layoffs or furloughs of city employees and said the city’s spending plan must start repairing the damage caused by decades of mismanagement by his predecessors.
“This is still a proposal,” Johnson said. “It’s ongoing conversation and we’ll continue to have those with individuals who decide they want to show up for it.”
Johnson has rejected a proposal to halt programs using the city’s unspent COVID-19 relief funds to balance the city’s budget and drop plans to contribute an additional $272 million toward the city’s four pension funds to close the gap and avoid a property tax hike.
But it is not clear that a majority of the City Council will approve a spending plan that includes any property tax hike at all, complicating Johnson’s efforts to meet the looming Dec. 31 deadline to pass a budget.
The mayor’s office has proposed hiking taxes on software licenses, cloud services and other digital goods from 9% to 11%, to generate an additional $128 million, officials said. The rest of the gap could be made up with small cuts and efficiencies, officials said.
Johnson declined to confirm those proposals Tuesday.
Property taxes are the city’s largest source of revenue and the most effective way for city officials to raise revenue and ensure expenses do not outstrip costs. Most other revenue generating proposals, like imposing a sales tax on services, not just goods, would require a change in state law.
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]
