Brandon Johnson to deliver budget proposal, address nearly $1B shortfall

CHICAGO - Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is expected to introduce his budget proposal to City Council today.

His proposal is meant to help the city close its budget gap of nearly $1 billion for 2025.

Aldermen said Johnson is looking to raise property taxes, which is the opposite of what he repeatedly promised during his run for mayor. It's unknown how much the mayor would want to raise taxes.

Last year, Johnson was able to close a budget gap of more than $500 million.

Joe Ferguson, president of the Civic Federation, said increasing property taxes should be treated as a "last resort." 

"In Chicago, we’re used to working our way around our structural issues and problems," Ferguson said. "This time, we have to be very transactional because we haven’t done the work in the last year to prepare us to face a budget that we actually projected a year ago. But we can set the table for the year ahead to actually put us in a position where we're not working around these things anymore, but we’re working through them."

Former Mayor Lori Lightfoot had to tackle a bigger shortfall of $1.2 billion dollars in 2021, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. She was able to balance the budget by using federal stimulus money.

"Immediately, we have some very, very hard work to do to get from here to a balanced budget by the end of the year," Ferguson said.

Johnson's budget proposal will be streamed starting around 10 a.m. in the media player at the top of this story.