Aldermen from across the political spectrum pressured Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s budget team on Tuesday to come up with a proposal to head off a $93.9 million property tax hike.

A trio of budget ordinances backed by progressive aldermen failed to advance Monday, as a fiscal watchdog warned that Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s plan to borrow $15 million to avoid layoffs and refinance an additional $1.7 billion was potentially perilous.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced Saturday she would drop her plan to lay off 350 employees to help balance the city’s 2021 budget after her proposal smacked into a brick wall of opposition from many aldermen.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot acknowledged on Thursday that she had linked the upcoming vote on her plan to balance the city’s 2021 budget with tax hikes, layoffs and millions of dollars of borrowing with protections for immigrants.

A proposal from the Chicago Federation of Labor that union officials contend could save the city of Chicago between $195 million and $272 million will not avert a property tax hike and layoffs in 2021, Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s office said Tuesday.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s plan to create a new public safety office in an effort to save money by making the city’s law enforcement agencies more efficient has yet to show results — and aldermen are losing patience.

The coronavirus pandemic has devastated Chicago’s cultural landscape, and that pain is likely to continue into 2021, Mark Kelly, commissioner of the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, said during Thursday’s budget hearings.

Aldermen urged city transportation officials on Friday to help them repave more Chicago streets, spotlighting a perennial gripe about potholes and rough rides during a budget season like no other.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s $12.76 billion spending plan for 2021 fails to craft a “compassionate, bold” solution to the long-standing inequities that plague Chicago, according to the City Council’s Progressive Caucus.

A second Wall Street ratings agency sounded the alarm over Chicago’s budget on Wednesday as aldermen continued weighing Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s $12.76 billion spending plan for 2021.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s plan to close a projected $1.2 billion budget gap by hiking property taxes and laying off employees got a cool reception Monday from aldermen, who pleaded for other options amid a raging pandemic.

As Chicago grapples with a second wave of the pandemic, a Wall Street ratings agency fired a shot across the bow as aldermen prepared to start a month of hearings on Mayor Lightfoot’s spending plan.

“There are points in time when scoop and toss is appropriate” and that is now the case since Chicago is facing a $1.2 billion budget gap, Chief Financial Officer Jennie Huang Bennett said.

The mayor’s budget plan, the next coronavirus wave and the final presidential debate. Our politics team takes on those stories and more in this week’s roundtable. 

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s plan to close a projected $1.2 billion budget gap in 2021 would hike sales and property taxes by $76.4 million, eliminate 1,921 city jobs and dip into the city’s rainy-day fund.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot has repeatedly said she’s not in favor of defunding the Chicago Police Department, but with position reductions, budget cuts and investments in a new pilot program, the city may be rethinking the way policing will work.