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.

“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.

In all, CPD’s budget is set to swell to $2.1 billion, increasing by $37.9 million to cover the cost of salary increases required by agreements with unions representing members.

“The line to draw here is that we either are going to protect working people in Chicago from Trump’s cuts, or we are going to open up the floodgates and allow these individuals to be hurt and harmed further,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said.

Even though Chicago’s 2025 budget included $500,000 for the program, the effort will not move forward after the City Council’s Pedestrian and Traffic Safety Committee, meeting in a joint session with the Transportation Committee, rejected officials’ plan to plow sidewalks in two small parts of the city.

A budget forecast for 2026 projects a $1.15 billion deficit for the city, driven by the end of one-time federal pandemic aid and continued uncertainty over pension payments for Chicago Public Schools employees.

Chicago taxpayers paid $295 million between 2019 and 2024 to resolve lawsuits naming officers whose alleged misconduct led more than once to payouts, according to an analysis of city data by WTTW News. In all, the city spent $491.7 million to resolve lawsuits alleging 1,643 Chicago police officers committed a wide range of misconduct.

The Chicago Police Department spent approximately 7% less on overtime during the first six months of 2025 than it did during the same period in 2024, records show.

“We don’t have a spending problem, we have a revenue problem,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said Wednesday. “That’s why my budget is going to challenge the ultra-rich to pay their fair share in taxes.”

The report offers “89 preliminary options to improve operations, generate new revenue, and pursue strategic opportunities, all while preserving city services” that could add between $1 billion and $2.1 billion to the city’s bottom line.

“Chicagoans deserve the truth about the fiscal conditions of our city,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said. “Our economy does remain resilient, but fiscal discipline is certainly required in this moment.”

The bill is designed to make sure that Chicago police officers and firefighters earn pension benefits at the same level as downstate first responders.