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Chicago Tribune
5 days ago
- Business
- Chicago Tribune
Mayor Brandon Johnson pledges no push for property tax hike after CFO recently called one ‘likely'
Mayor Brandon Johnson is now ruling out seeking a property tax hike in his upcoming budget proposal, an apparent shift in course for his administration after a top city official said earlier in the week that they probably would do so. On Friday, Johnson said he will instead try again to tax the city's wealthiest residents and corporations. He added that he has 'a number' of ideas for progressive revenue, but did not answer when asked to share them. 'The ultra-rich in this city and this state have an opportunity to do a better job in investing in our infrastructure, investing in community safety,' he said. Johnson told the Tribune that 'nothing has changed' when asked about the apparent abrupt switch-up during a news conference. The mayor's attempts to raise property taxes to balance this year's budget were roundly rejected by aldermen. But he said he isn't turning away from property taxes to close the 2026 budget hole because he's worried he doesn't have the votes. 'We've always made it very clear from the very beginning that we are going to invest in people and use progressive revenue to ensure that we build the safest, most affordable big city in America,' he said. Just Tuesday, Chicago's Chief Financial Officer Jill Jaworski said 'it is likely that that will be part of the package' when asked about the mayor calling for a 2026 property tax increase. But the mayor delivered a clear rejection of the idea Thursday. 'I will not be proposing a property tax increase in my budget. I'm going to continue to work hard to find progressive revenue,' he told ABC-7 Chicago. The mayor similarly did not specify Thursday to ABC-7 what new taxes and other revenue-raisers he hopes to rely on to balance the city's budget. He also said it was too early to discuss potential furloughs and layoffs, adding 'our workforce is what makes our city strong.' The 2026 budget fight will begin in earnest after Labor Day. Johnson, who campaigned promising to not raise property taxes, proposed last year that the city raise them by $300 million to help close a budget gap near $1 billion. Aldermen rejected the plan in an unprecedented 50-0 vote. The mayor's administration then tried to negotiate several smaller property tax hikes with aldermen, but was rejected each time. The City Council's decision, alongside Johnson's opposition to city service and workforce cuts, resulted in a compromise to balance the budget with a fleet of smaller taxes and fees. The largest was a roughly $130 million hike to the personal property lease tax on cloud computing services, a move that affected software services, including many that businesses rely upon. Johnson notably failed in an earlier effort to tax the rich in 2023 when the 'Bring Chicago Home' plan lost in a citywide referendum. The proposal would have hiked taxes on real estate transfers over $1 million to raise money to pay for homelessness services. Many aldermen fear the sort of kitchen-sink approach they used to land the budget last year will be harder to use this year. Several easier-to-tap options have been exhausted, and the city's fiscal challenges have only grown as federal funding cuts threaten the city's already precarious financial position. Johnson's top budget officials have long described property taxes as an effective way to bring in predictable, long-term revenue and stabilize the city's budget. But in ruling out property taxes as part of the package this fall, the mayor may very well have sensed a trial balloon had popped after several aldermen quickly criticized the idea this week.
Chicago Tribune
23-07-2025
- Business
- Chicago Tribune
Mayor Brandon Johnson's CFO says property tax hike ‘likely' in 2026 budget
Mayor Brandon Johnson's team teased plans this week to take another swing at raising property taxes to close the city's more than $1 billion budget gap, despite an aldermanic revolt last year and continued resistance to such a hike. Asked in an interview with Bloomberg's Romaine Bostick whether a property tax increase would again be proposed for the city's 2026 budget, Chief Financial Officer Jill Jaworski said 'it is likely that that will be part of the package,' without addressing how to garner support from the City Council to pass it. One of Johnson's 'budgeteers' last year, Ald. Matt O'Shea, 19th, said he would need to see major cuts and efficiencies to be won over. 'And if it doesn't happen, I'm a no vote, and so are the majority of my colleagues,' he said. 'We need to start talking about stuff we never talked about before.' Jaworksi affirmed cuts will also be part of the mayor's budget package, but said the administration is 'hoping to avoid' reducing services. She suggested the city would be addressing a chief complaint from the business community about the unpredictability of property taxes. 'You're thinking about investment, uncertainty is the enemy, right?' It's a similar line to the one Mayor Lori Lightfoot used when she successfully proposed tying annual property tax hikes to 5% or the rate of inflation, whichever was lower. Johnson, who campaigned against raising property taxes and instead pitched other progressive revenues, backed off of Lightfoot's policy in his first budget, only to renege last year amid a nearly $1 billion deficit. Aldermen preemptively voted against that hike. The final budget instead included a bigger share of one-time fixes — including using federal pandemic dollars and prior-year surplus — to close the gap. Ratings agencies that help determine how much the city will owe on debt have cited a lack of progress finding 'permanent and high impact solutions' to close its budget gap as black marks. Property taxes are among the most stable and predictable revenues the city can raise on its own. Fitch also dinged the city earlier this year for its pursuit of other revenues 'that require state or voter support, which do not appear to be forthcoming in the near term.' Jaworski has argued the state should legalize taxing services. Johnson has called for taxing the rich, but since the failure of the 'Bring Chicago Home' referendum, has not proposed how the city would do it. Ald. Brian Hopkins, 2nd, said he appreciated Jaworski's commitment to a balanced budget, but cautioned Johnson's administration to not start discussions by saying a property tax hike is necessary. It is the mayor's job — not Jaworski's — to sell the public on such a tax hike, and a critical part of doing that is showing the math that would make it necessary, Hopkins said. 'People don't want to be told it's inevitable and unavoidable, because they don't believe that,' he said. 'It'll spark a rebellion. People will feel manipulated and like something is being forced down their throats.' While currently opposed to a property tax hike, Hopkins said 'I don't think we can rule out anything.'
Washington Post
02-06-2025
- Business
- Washington Post
Trump rides to the rescue of Chicago's flailing mayor
Two years ago, Chicago voters dumped their unpopular incumbent mayor, Lori Lightfoot, a standard-issue Democratic progressive, and replaced her with Brandon Johnson, who is, if anything, an even harder-left progressive. It was as though voters thought there was only one way to run a city, and they were ready to keep trying until they got it right. Fast-forward to this year, and Johnson's approval rating is 14 percent, according to an Illinois Policy Institute poll in January. Of the 798 registered Chicago voters polled by M3 Strategies, nearly 80 percent had an unfavorable view of Johnson, including 65 percent 'very unfavorable.' Johnson defends his record by pointing to a decline in crime that has been dramatic by some measures — this past April saw the fewest murders in that month since 1962, though violent crime has been declining nationwide. And you might figure a drop in crime should make the mayor's approval numbers rise, not fall close to the level of disdain Americans show for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin (8 percent, according to a Pew Research poll). Beyond crime, the story of Johnson's first two years is a familiar one: lousy public services with a high cost of living exacerbated by seemingly endless tax increases. The Chicago budget passed in December included $181 million in new taxes and fees. These included hiking a cloud services and digital goods tax from 9 percent to 11 percent; raising the streaming and cable TV tax from 9 percent to 10.25 percent; and increasing the parking tax to 23.25 percent. Oh, and adding a $3 ride-hailing surcharge on weekends and increasing the single-use bag tax from 7 cents to 10 cents. Johnson wanted even higher taxes. In 2024, the mayor offered a ballot referendum called Bring Chicago Home that would have raised transfer taxes on properties that sell for more than $1 million and used the revenue to fund homelessness programs, but 52 percent of voters rejected it. When Johnson was a mayoral candidate, one of the few areas where he didn't want to raise taxes was property taxes, and no wonder. The Civic Federation, a nonpartisan local research organization, noted in a report last fall that 'a taxpayer in the City of Chicago pays property taxes to 7 or 8 local governments, depending on which part of the City they live.' (Those local governments include Cook County, the city of Chicago, Chicago Public Schools, City Colleges of Chicago, Chicago Park District, Forest Preserve District of Cook County and the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District. Chicago residents living south of 87th Street also pay property taxes to the South Cook Mosquito Abatement District.) But despite Johnson's campaign promise, he proposed $300 million in property tax hikes in October that the City Council unanimously rejected. After the defeat, the Wall Street Journal editorial board called Johnson 'America's worst mayor.' In Johnson's defense, at the time of that editorial, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass (D) had yet to be photographed posing for photos at a cocktail party in Ghana while the Palisades Fire was torching a good chunk of her city. This is why we need a playoff system. Living in a big city almost always costs more than in the suburbs or rural areas, but Chicago's city government seems dead-set on wringing money from residents in every way imaginable. Now, they are rationally concluding that the mayor and his administration aren't delivering. With such an abysmal approval rating and no sign of Johnson reconsidering his governing philosophy, you might think it would take a miracle to resuscitate his popularity and political future. Well, that miracle seems to be arriving in the form of the U.S. Justice Department. On May 19, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon wrote to Johnson, informing him that the Justice Department is investigating his administration to see if it 'engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination based on race.' The day before, in a speech at the Apostolic Church of God in Chicago's Woodlawn neighborhood, Johnson boasted that his deputy mayors, budget director, chief operations officer and senior advisers were Black, and added, 'When you hire our people, we always look out for everybody else. We are the most generous people on the planet.' That's a thin reed on which to base an accusation of racial discrimination in city hiring, and you're forgiven if you doubt that's the wisest use of Justice Department resources. (If prosecutors can prove that the city is turning away qualified applicants because of their race, that's a different story.) It isn't as if bringing down a Democratic mayor would boost Republican prospects in Chicago; Donald Trump received just 28 percent of the vote in Cook County in November, his worst performance in any Illinois county. If anything, the Trump administration is helping Johnson by going after him; few things could make Chicago Democrats instinctively unite like an attack on the mayor by this White House. If Johnson's numbers improve and the severely underperforming mayor tightens his grip on City Hall, that will ensure Chicago remains a prime example of progressive failure. Perhaps that would be Trump's ultimate, if unintended, revenge on Chicago voters for preferring Kamala Harris to him — getting them to sign up for four more years of Johnson's mismanagement.
Chicago Tribune
28-05-2025
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
Laura Washington: Keep at it, mayor. Equity is the best tool you have against the White House.
Mayor Brandon Johnson is scrambling to beef up his Black bona fides. His moves have backfired. A cardinal rule of politics is that, if you lose your base, you're gone. Halfway through his first term, Johnson is laboring diligently to shore up his support among Black voters. That has put him crosswise with President Donald Trump. Johnson is bogged down by polls that show his popularity has plummeted. For example, a massive 79.9% of respondents disapproved of Johnson's performance in office, according to one survey of 700 likely Chicago voters taken in late February. Only 6.6% of voters viewed Johnson favorably, and about 12% of respondents said they had a neutral opinion of the mayor, according to the poll by M3 Strategies. Johnson's weak performance has brought out the knives. Two political organizations have vowed to fight the mayor and his progressive allies. Chicago Forward, a group of city business leaders, helped torpedo Johnson's prized Bring Chicago Home referendum. Its political consultant, Greg Goldner, told the Chicago Tribune that the group will continue to pound away at Johnson and his supporters. A 'dark money' group called Common Ground Collective has raised $10 million and is targeting aldermen who are close to the mayor, the Tribune reports. So, it's back to the base. Johnson won City Hall by besting opponent Paul Vallas in the 2023 mayoral runoff, taking every one of the city's African American wards. Now, Black voters are grumbling. They want more city services and social service programs directed to their neglected neighborhoods. They complain about the hundreds of millions of dollars the Johnson administration has plowed into supporting immigrants and refugees. They clamor for job and recreational opportunities for African American youths. Johnson is hitting Black churches, appearing regularly on Black radio and at events on the city's South and West sides to tout his record. On a recent Sunday, Johnson boasted about his hiring record at the Apostolic Church of God in Woodlawn. He listed African Americans he has tapped for top jobs in his administration. 'Business and economic neighborhood development, the deputy mayor, is a Black woman,' he declared. 'Department of Planning and Development is a Black woman. Infrastructure, deputy mayor, is a Black woman. Chief operations officer is a Black man. Budget director is a Black woman.' That unforced error blew up in his face. The U.S. Justice Department reacted by launching an investigation 'to determine whether the City of Chicago, Illinois, is engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination based on race,' in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In a May 19 letter to Johnson, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon wrote: 'Our investigation is based on information suggesting that you have made hiring decisions solely on the basis of race.' Johnson, Dhillon noted, 'highlight[ed] the number of Black officials in [your] administration. You then went on to list each of these individuals, emphasizing their race.' The Trump administration is on a crusade to abolish diversity, equity and inclusion in government, educational institutions and the corporate arena. 'We're not going to be intimidated by the tyranny that's coming from the federal government,' Johnson responded at a news conference. 'The diversity of our city is our strength.' He declared that 'we are going to show up for the Latino community. We're going to show up for Asian Americans. We're going to show up for Black folks in this city. We're going to show up for the LGBTQ+ community. Any group that has been marginalized and has suffered under tyranny and oppression, we're going to show up for them.' The racial makeup of the mayor's office staff is 34% Black, 24% Hispanic, 30% white and 7% Asian, according to data a mayoral spokesperson provided to the media. The latest census data shows that Chicago's population is 39% white, 29% Latino, 28% Black and 7% Asian. Of Trump, Johnson said, 'My administration reflects the country, reflects the city; his administration reflects the country club,' noting that Trump's Cabinet is overwhelmingly white. Our civil rights laws were not designed as racist tools to keep Trump in power. Five years, ago, we were all-in on fighting for racial equity in the wake of the police murder of George Floyd. America's racial awakening was in full swing. Now, we are in what the Chicago Defender has labeled the 'post-Floyd backslide.' DEI is under attack by Trump, who sees diversity as a dirty word, even a crime. Trump doesn't give a whit about fairness; he just wants to preserve and uphold white male dominance. For sure, Johnson erred by leaning heavily into his base at the church event, rather than his overall record of making equity a hallmark of his administration. No need to apologize for that. People of color everywhere despise Trump for his assault on our history, culture and achievements. Keep at it, mayor. The best political weapon you have against the White House is battling for equity. Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@
Chicago Tribune
18-05-2025
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
Editorial: It's not the messaging, Mr. Mayor. Your policies and governance are the problems.
We're halfway through Mayor Brandon Johnson's term, and the city the mayor described in a series of recent interviews to mark the milestone hardly resembles what we see. We agree with the mayor that Chicago is a great American city, made so by the people who live, work, play and love here. But in many other respects — a transit system that continues to perform unacceptably, public schools that cost too much and do a poor job of teaching our children, violent crime levels well above peer American cities and a local economy needlessly deprived of the dynamism that produced our uniquely beautiful skyline — Chicago is ailing. For all the unfair shots ideologically motivated critics take at the city, Chicagoans who've grown up here and made adult lives here know something has gone wrong these last two years. They've seen what this city looks and feels like when things are going well. And, judging from Johnson's rock-bottom public-approval numbers, many of them have concluded he's a big part of the current problem. The job of mayor is tough no matter who's in the office, but Chicago could be doing so much better with a different brand of leadership — and, really, a wholly different philosophy — than Johnson has brought to the fifth floor. Before we discuss what we think is wrong, let's recognize what Johnson has done well. Topping that list is appointing Chicago police Superintendent Larry Snelling, who has helped restore some measure of morale to the force, overseen a noteworthy reduction in violent crime and led a smooth Democratic National Convention in which protesters were allowed to have their say without sparking chaos. Likewise, Johnson's recent choice of Michael McMurray in the crucial post of aviation commissioner was solid. On the policy front, his Cut the Tape initiative, aimed at reducing the inexcusably long time it takes to win city approval for development projects, is laudable. The execution, however, has been too slow. And, more generally, no one doubts Johnson's love for Chicago and his honest desire to lift up neighborhoods that long have been neglected. But the losses and setbacks have far outnumbered the wins despite the City Council being populated with record numbers of self-described progressives, who (on paper at least) are allies of the mayor. Leave aside more moderate aldermen who from the start were unlikely to back Johnson's agenda; the mayor has struggled time and again to win support even from fellow progressives for high-priority initiatives. Many of those progressives have openly feuded with his administration. Likewise, when they've had the chance, voters have clearly expressed their displeasure with the mayor. The most striking example was the March 2024 rejection of his Bring Chicago Home referendum, which would have allowed the city to dramatically hike taxes on the sale of higher-priced residential and most all commercial property to fund homelessness programs. The school board elections last November were another warning sign. Improbably, candidates not endorsed by the mayor's most important political ally, the Chicago Teachers Union, won six of nine contested elections — a clear rebuke of the mayor. In interviews, Johnson's message at the halfway mark has consisted largely of the time-honored political tradition of acknowledging mistakes in the same way a job applicant responds to the question of describing their biggest flaw by saying they work too hard at times. In the mayor's telling, it's not any of the policies or their execution that explain his unpopularity; it's that he hasn't done enough to communicate all the wonderful things that are happening on his watch. He points to city initiatives like the so-called green social housing ordinance — one of his few victories in the City Council — which will have the city financing and for the first time taking direct ownership of affordable housing projects. He mentions early-term policy changes like eliminating the subminimum wage for tipped employees and imposing paid-leave mandates on businesses — initiatives that raise costs for existing businesses and discourage the creation of new ones. While the intentions behind these policies were mostly good, they don't make up for the lack of confidence private investors and job creators feel in the city under Johnson's leadership. It's not even close. The oft-cited dearth of cranes in Chicago's sky represents tangible evidence. More generally, the numbers confirm what Chicagoans see and feel as they move about the city. With the exception of a few retail strips in affluent neighborhoods, Chicago isn't thriving. It's not growing. It's lacking energy. And it's losing ground to competitors. Every year, on behalf of state government, Moody's produces a detailed and illuminating report on Illinois' economy. Those reports tell a damning tale of Johnson's term so far. In February 2023, three months before Johnson took office, Moody's pointed to Chicago employment growth of 3.5% over the previous year and observed that the performance 'outpaced' the Midwest and the U.S. as a whole. A year later, in February 2024, nine months into Johnson's term, Moody's said, 'Chicago's economy is showing signs of fatigue.' Job growth had slowed to just 0.8%, with most private-sector industries other than health care lagging. Wage gains also were worse in Chicago than in the country as a whole. The most recent report, from February 2025, was sadder still. 'Chicago's economy is trailing its large peers and the U.S. overall,' Moody's said. Employment was 'relatively flat for the past year and a half.' Throughout Johnson's tenure, the city's unemployment rate consistently has been about a percentage point above the national rate. Johnson describes himself as 'pro-business' and told Crain's Chicago Business he will 'put his record up against' any past mayor with a business-friendly reputation. Very few people actually doing business in Chicago would agree with the mayor's self-assessment. Johnson still doesn't seem to understand that economic development doesn't emanate mainly from City Hall and its programs — or shouldn't, anyway, in a healthy commercial ecosystem. Far more jobs and economic opportunity, including for people living on the South and West sides, are created when the city provides essential services at a reasonable cost and engenders confidence in those considering establishing new businesses or expanding existing ones that stability along those lines can be expected in the future. Thus far, the Johnson administration has failed in that basic task. On his watch, the city's debt rating has been downgraded for the first time in a decade. Unlike in past years, the administration last week barred journalists from attending any part of a two-day gathering with investors in which Johnson's finance team attempted to persuade them to buy hundreds of millions in new bonds the city wants to issue this year. Hardly inspires confidence. Facing a daunting budget deficit last year, the mayor proposed a $300 million property tax hike, summarily rejected by the City Council, thereby breaking a categorical campaign promise while refusing to consider layoffs or even furloughs to make ends meet. He's piling more debt on a city awash in IOUs and even pushed hard — again, failing so far, thankfully — for Chicago Public Schools to take on hundreds of millions in more debt despite being the largest issuer of junk-rated municipal bonds in the country. The mayor could be considered the epitome of a tax-and-spend Democrat, only he's typically unable to persuade fellow officeholders with similarly progressive views to green-light the taxes. So he's become a borrow-and-spend Democrat. For any mayor, the job entails two primary tasks before all else: public safety and financial stewardship. On the latter count, this mayor has been deeply disappointing so far. In our view, that's a major reason why Chicago's economy is stuck in the mud. It's not that Chicagoans haven't understood what you're selling, Mr. Mayor. The problem is what has been on offer.
