As the mayor ramps up work on his second budget proposal, a newly formed Chicago City Council subcommittee is set to meet at noon Wednesday to start examining the dozens of proposals to increase the amount of money officials have on hand to spend starting in 2025.
Chicago Finances
The City Council’s Finance Committee is set to consider the proposed settlement, which calls for taxpayers to pay $21 million and the city’s insurance company to pay $29 million.
The Chicago Police Department has fully met just 7% of the consent decree’s requirements, according to the most recent report by the team monitoring CPD’s progress.
In all, Chicago spent $202 million on a host of programs including affordable housing, mental health, violence prevention, youth job programs and help for unhoused Chicagoans through March 31, records show.
The approval represents a major win for Mayor Brandon Johnson, who has touted the proposal as a way to make Chicago a more equitable place to live by “investing in people” and expanding the city’s economic capacity — without raising taxes on Chicago property owners.
Civic Federation President Joseph Ferguson called the complicated proposal to phase out the city’s decades-long reliance on tax increment financing districts, known as TIFs, “sensible” and “responsible.”
After 12,634 mail-in ballots were counted by Chicago election officials late Friday, the results were essentially unchanged. Approximately 53% of voters rejected Ballot Question No. 1, better known as Bring Chicago Home, according to unofficial totals.
The mayor has touted the proposal as a fulfillment of a promise he made during the 2023 campaign to make Chicago a more equitable place to live by “investing in people” and expanding the city’s economic capacity — without raising taxes on Chicago property owners.
“No one said it was going to be easy,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said. “I’m very much committed. The fight still goes on. We’re going to keep organizing.”
The last time Chicago voters passed a binding referendum that applied to the entire city was 1885, when they voted to create the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners, according to city records.
The Chicago City Council is set to consider paying $45 million to resolve a lawsuit that alleges an unauthorized chase left a 15-year-old boy with a traumatic brain injury, unable to walk or talk.
“This has been a situation that has gotten increasingly out of control,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said about the massive bills for police overtime. “The superintendent and I, we both agree on that.”
With three of the seven justices abstaining, the state’s highest court rejected an appeal from a coalition of real estate and development groups that sued the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners to knock the ballot measure off Tuesday’s ballot.
The Chicago Police Department spent $293 million on overtime last year, 40% more than in 2022 and nearly three times the $100 million earmarked for police overtime set by the Chicago City Council as part of the city’s 2023 budget, according to data obtained by WTTW News.
A coalition of the real estate and development groups asked the Illinois Supreme Court to reverse an appellate court ruling that overturned a decision by Cook County Judge Kathleen Burke that blocked the Chicago Board of Elections from counting votes for and against the proposal, known as Bring Chicago Home.
A three-judge panel of the 1st District Appellate Court unanimously overturned the Feb. 23 decision by a Cook County judge that invalidated the binding ballot question known as Bring Chicago Home. The ruling could still be appealed to the Illinois Supreme Court.
