Crafted by Mayor Brandon Johnson, the measure forces social media companies to pay a tax of 50 cents per month for every active user after the first 100,000 users, under the city’s amusement tax authority.

Chicago is required to pay $2.85 billion this year into its pension funds in order to comply with a state law designed to ensure the pension funds can pay benefits to employees as they retire.

Mayor Brandon Johnson warned again on Wednesday that the Chicago City Council may have to make emergency cuts if revenue baked into the city’s 2026 spending plan fails to materialize.

Chicagoans will get a small break on their grocery bills but be forced to pony up to cover a host of tax and fee hikes that a deeply divided Chicago City Council approved to fill a massive budget shortfall over the objections of Mayor Brandon Johnson.

The city budget, which will take effect Jan. 1, will double CPD’s overtime budget from $100 million to $200 million, the first increase since 2020, when the budget for police overtime went from $95 million to $100 million, records show.

Mayor Brandon Johnson’s decision not to veto the budget he called “morally bankrupt” immediately averts what could have been the city most severe fiscal crisis in more than 40 years.

“We may not have the majority of the City Council but we do have the people,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said just before the the Chicago City Council voted to approve a budget he fiercely opposed.

Mayor Brandon Johnson stopped short Friday of promising to veto that spending plan but said he has “serious and significant concerns about the plan, which he and the city’s top financial officials contend would leave the city with a deficit of more than $163 million.

While Mayor Brandon Johnson weighed what could be the biggest decision of his time as mayor, the Civic Federation said the proposed "budget does not move Chicago appreciably toward long-term fiscal stability."

Mayor Brandon Johnson called the plan speculative, infeasible and immoral, but has yet to announce whether he would veto the plan. It would take 34 votes to override that rejection.

Mayor Brandon Johnson immediately rejected the proposal to increase the city’s debt collection efforts as a tax “on everyday Chicagoans” that would target “poor and working” people.

There are just 15 days left before the deadline to avoid an unprecedented shutdown of Chicago city government.

Over the objections of the mayor, the Chicago City Council agreed to meet Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Dec. 23 in an attempt to hammer out a deal over the $16.6 billion spending plan.

The current proposal would impose a $33 per employee tax on companies with 500 or more employees to generate $82 million to fund violence prevention and youth employment programs.

Mayor Brandon Johnson said he was open to new ideas and continuing negotiations but said he would not allow the city’s budget to be balanced “on the backs of working people.”

The latest back-and-forth between the mayor’s office and Mayor Brandon Johnson’s critics leaves no clear path to a deal with just 26 days left before the deadline to avoid an unprecedented shutdown of city government.