In all, $1.59 billion poured into the city’s 108 TIF funds in 2024, according to the annual report from the clerk’s office posted online Wednesday.

The number of people visiting the temporary casino at River North’s Medinah Temple failed to grow from 2024 to 2025, leading to a 1.3% drop in tax revenues,

In the latest case to be settled, the City Council voted 28-16 to pay $875,000 to 21 people who each say they were brutalized by Chicago police officers during the 2020 protests.

“The city’s finances are, needless to say, in an extremely precarious place, and we can ill-afford mistakes which run well into the eight figures,” Inspector General Deborah Witzburg said

“The final purchase price was far too high, much more than they initially received for the sale, and higher than most reasonable assumptions would support,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said.

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.

The city of Chicago spent $250.8 million on overtime for members of the Chicago Police Department during 2025 — 151% more than the Chicago City Council set aside for police overtime as part of the city’s annual budget, according to records published by the city’s watchdog.

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.