It’s rare that we would applaud inaction, but aldermen on Friday tacitly taking down Mayor Brandon Johnson’s tax-heavy solutions to Chicago’s budget crisis qualifies for cheers.
The City Council is scheduled to reconvene at 1 p.m. Monday, with Team Johnson over the weekend having worked to alter the $17.3 billion budget in order to win a majority and prevent a city government shutdown at the end of the month.
So the question is, what now? The council rejected Johnson’s first pass at a budget, featuring a proposed $300 million property tax hike, on a 50-0 vote. The mayor’s version 2.0 of the budget, with the property tax increase trimmed to $68.5 million but with another $166 million in assorted tax increases, fees and fines, would have been voted down, too, had the mayor and his aldermanic allies not moved Friday for a face-saving recess.
At some point, whether today or later this week (or this month), there will need to be a budget version 3.0 that passes muster. Most everyone involved agrees that any budget capable of attracting at least 25 aldermanic votes will include no property tax increase. So the mayor and council at a bare minimum will have to find $68.5 million in cuts or alternative revenue to fill that hole.