Even as City Council members returned to City Hall on Tuesday after the Thanksgiving holiday, there is no clear path to a deal with just 28 days left before the deadline to avoid an unprecedented shutdown of city government.
Chicago Budget Director Annette Guzman joined “Chicago Tonight” to discuss the budget negotiations.
Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling told the Chicago City Council on Nov. 5 that he was confident that CPD would be able to spend no more than $200 million on overtime in 2026.
Mayor Brandon Johnson’s proposal to impose $623 million in new taxes on the wealthiest Chicagoans and largest firms remains in purgatory, with no clear path to a deal with just 41 days left before the deadline to avoid a shutdown of city government.
Alds. Daniel La Spata (1st Ward), William Hall (6th Ward) and Bill Conway (34th Ward) joined “Chicago Tonight” to discuss the ongoing budget negotiations. Here’s a snapshot of where they stand.
The refusal of the City Council’s Finance Committee to advance Mayor Brandon Johnson’s proposed spending plan is another sign there is no clear consensus on the bulk of Johnson’s proposal to impose $623 million in new taxes on the wealthiest Chicagoans and largest firms.
The current proposed budget would impose a monthly $21 per employee tax on companies with more than 200 employees to generate $82 million to fund violence prevention and youth employment programs.
Mayor Brandon Johnson’s 2026 budget proposal includes a controversial head tax he hopes will generate $100 million to fund violence prevention and youth employment programs in the city.
Chicago Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin is running to represent Illinois’ 7th Congressional District and replace retiring U.S. Rep. Danny K. Davis.
A marathon session before the City Council’s Budget and Government Operations Committee on Monday made it clear there is no easy way to bridge the city’s $1.19 billion projected shortfall, leaving alderpeople across the political spectrum frustrated as the budget debate hits a tipping point.
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Mayor Brandon Johnson is calling for more taxes on big companies in his 2026 budget proposal. Under the mayor’s plan, businesses in Chicago with more than 100 employees would have to pay $21 for each employee every month.
S&P, one of a handful of major ratings agencies, revised its rating outlook for Chicago from stable to negative. Mayor Brandon Johnson defended his spending plan proposal as a “structurally sound budget.”
Allowing CPD to spend unlimited sums of taxpayer money is a “crazy way to run a city,” said Justin Marlowe, a professor in the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, and the director of the Center for Municipal Finance.
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“From the public health perspective, it is about protecting the children and protecting adults who don’t really know what is in the products they’re consuming,” Chicago Department of Public Health Commissioner Dr. Olusimbo “Simbo” Ige said.
Chicago taxpayers have spent at least $267 million to resolve lawsuits alleging Chicago police officers committed a wide range of misconduct so far this year, according to an analysis of city data by WTTW News.
As aldermen kicked off nearly a month of hearings by quizzing the mayor’s finance team for more than four hours, several alderpeople said they were shocked by the amount of money the mayor had proposed taking from the city’s tax increment financing districts.
 

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