Mayor Brandon Johnson is all but giving up on his proposed $300 million property tax hike before aldermen kill it, and pushing them to find other revenue in its place to avert layoffs.
Johnson’s administration is combing over alternatives to the tax jump after members of the City Council scheduled a special meeting in the hopes of voting it down . The mayor’s team has presented an array of options to shrink his proposed property tax increase, including using federal COVID-19 funds, raising a monthly garbage collection fee or hiking various smaller taxes. As negotiations continue, the City Council has extended budget hearings, meaning a final vote now is unlikely before mid-December.
Johnson suggested he wasn’t fully committed to his $300 million property tax plan on Tuesday. Instead, he suggested the proposal was a tactic to get aldermen fully engaged, like he did when he was a teacher with his students.
“I’ll say it like this. So as a public school teacher, sometimes we do things to get people’s attention. And so now that we have the attention of everyone, I’ve said from the very beginning, this is a proposal,” Johnson said. “I’m a collaborative mayor. For the first time in the history of Chicago you’re actually seeing that type of collaborative approach.”