With the failure last month of Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s graduated income tax amendment, Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan floats an income tax hike while making his pitch to the Black Caucus.

The budget passed despite opposition from two main groups of aldermen: those who represent wards where a property tax hike of $93.9 million will hit hardest and aldermen who favored deep cuts to the police budget.

Throughout the pandemic, nature has proved its worth as an outlet and resource, benefiting people’s physical, emotional and mental well-being. Now the question is, will people return the favor?

Ahead of Tuesday’s vote, Mayor Lori Lightfoot is urging aldermen to support the plan she crafted to close a $1.2 billion budget deficit in 2021. Four aldermen sound off the plan.

The Chicago City Council is poised to approve Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s $12.8 billion spending plan for 2021 after the plan advanced on Thursday with a 26-8 vote of the Budget and Government Operations Committee.

The City Council’s Finance Committee advanced Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s $12.8 billion spending plan to the full City Council on a 21-12 vote Wednesday.

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 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.

The defeat of a constitutional amendment to overhaul how Illinois taxes income will mean painful cuts and will not avert tax increases, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Wednesday.

In a blow to Gov. J.B. Pritzker and to his hopes of injecting billions of dollars more revenue into the state budget, Illinois voters on Tuesday rejected a constitutional amendment to overhaul how the state taxes income.

The property tax bill for retail space at Trump Tower has doubled to a million dollars. Crain’s Chicago Business reporter Danny Ecker joins us with that story and more.

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.