“The level of compliance is unsatisfying to the public,” U.S. District Court Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer said. “I am determined that we will be seeing good progress ... in 2025. Let’s accelerate the progress.”

“A budget that would lay off workers and cut services is just, you know, one that should not be tolerated by any Chicagoan,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said.

After an unrelated news conference, Mayor Brandon Johnson declined to say whether he still had confidence in Jason Lee, but praised his track record of helping progressive politicians get elected.

The new plan comes after the Chicago City Council rejected Johnson’s first two proposals to raise property taxes in order to avoid draconian cuts to city services and thousands of layoffs.

Joseph “JoJo” Mapp promised to serve as a “bridge” between community organizations working to help those returning to Chicago from jail or prison and the city.

“I get the noise around my administration,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said. “I’m doing it differently, and I know it feels a certain way, but I’m doing it better. I am. We’ll have a balanced budget that invests in people.”

As City Council members return to City Hall on Monday to wrap up budget hearings after a weeklong Thanksgiving break, there is no clear path to a deal with just 29 days left before the deadline to avoid an unprecedented shutdown of city government.

Mayor Brandon Johnson said he will ask the Chicago City Council to restore 162 now-vacant positions to the Chicago Police Department charged with implementing the court order known as the consent decree. Johnson reversed course after Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul and the team monitoring the city’s compliance with the consent decree warned the cuts would make it impossible for the city to comply with the requirements. 

CPS Chief Education Officer Bogdana Chkoumbova, the district’s second highest ranking leader, told reporters Thursday that the two sides remain “significantly” far apart at a time when CPS is facing a financial crisis.

If the mayor’s spending plan is approved by the City Council, 79 vacant positions charged with implementing the court order known as the consent decree would be eliminated, records show. Those cuts will make it impossible for the city to comply with the requirements of the court order, reform advocates said.

Chicago police agreed to judicial oversight in 2019. Since then, a series of mayors and police chiefs let efforts languish and no one in a position of oversight has pushed forcefully to keep the process on track, WTTW News and ProPublica found.

Mayor Brandon Johnson called on members of the Chicago City Council to do their job and stop throwing tantrums. “It’s time to grow up,” he said. “People in Chicago don’t have time for that.”

Johnson had planned to be in attendance at Martinez’s funeral Monday, but changed course Saturday, saying he’d “heard from the family and am honoring their request.”

Before the stunning rebuke from all 50 alderpeople, including his closest allies, Mayor Brandon Johnson said he remained “committed to collaboration” and would work to craft a budget that reflects the city’s values by investing in people.

“I must remind you that the consent decree is not optional,” Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul wrote to Mayor Brandon Johnson. “The City of Chicago must deliver on its consent decree obligations.”

Mayor Brandon Johnson used a Tuesday afternoon news conference to cast the City Council’s apparent refusal to hike property taxes by $300 million as evidence of his collaborative approach to governing in Chicago, and not a rebuke of his leadership.