Ald. Anthony Beale (9) speaks in opposition to the mayor's 2025 budget plan during a City Council meeting Dec. 16, 2024. [Don Vincent/The Daily Line]

By a slim 27-23 margin, the Chicago City Council approved a $17.1 billion budget for 2025 on Monday.

The narrow vote helped the city avoid an unprecedented government shutdown nearly two weeks before a deadline and after weeks of negotiations between the mayor and alderpeople. It concludes a budget process that already began late but sets up a potentially similar contentious fight next year, multiple council members said. 

“With this budget, we put yet another down payment toward a better, stronger and safer future for the working people and families who call this city their home,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said at a news conference following the council meeting. “While the budget process may have been different from the past, it included truly unprecedented levels of collaboration and input from the City Council.”

Alderpeople who voted no on Monday criticized the Johnson administration for punting on structural reforms and employing one-time solutions, dragging their feet on proposing cuts and efficiencies and endangering the city’s creditworthiness. 

“None of the problems that are in this budget have gone away, none of the structural issues,” Ald. Raymond Lopez (15) told The Daily Line. “In less than eight months, City Council will be in the exact same spot.”

Despite the changes and the elimination of the widely unpopular property tax hike, a group of 15 alderpeople sent the mayor a letter Sunday night decrying the revised proposal as kicking the can down the road.

While the budget doesn’t contain a property tax levy hike, the new budget “is a collection of reconfigured savings, recalibrated revenue projections and deferred payments that ultimately will serve as a delayed backdoor property tax increase,” the letter states. 

“The popular analogy is we kicked the can down the road,” Ald. Brian Hopkins (2) said during Monday’s meeting. “That analogy doesn't quite work, because cans don't grow larger when you kick them. And believe me, this one will.” 

“All expert accounts indicate that this budget’s over-reliance on one-time remedies rather than structural solutions are going to lead us to multiple credit rating agency downgrades,” Ald. Nicole Lee (11), vice chair of the budget committee, said. “I fear that we're now set up for an even worse set of choices next year.” 

The latest budget proposal eliminated a $68.5 million property tax increase and balanced the budget by slashing $1 million worth of positions from the mayor’s office and $2.8 million through various middle manager position cuts, reducing city debt service by $40 million and incorporating other efficiencies and cost-shifting or recovery efforts. 

Some of those other efforts include an $18.5 million contract savings and cost recovery initiative, shifting eligible costs within the Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection budget to the city’s Cable Television Origination Fund, and the introduction of an ordinance that would allow the city to recover and reduce overtime costs incurred by city departments that deal with large special events and unpermitted events.

The letter from the 15 alderpeople proposed an additional $823.7 million in spending cuts, such as eliminating the $432,000 budgeted for the vice mayor’s office; eliminating the Office of Public Safety Administration and returning its functions to the city’s public safety agencies — which would save about $61.3 million; eliminating detached services spending for the city treasurer, clerk and chairpeople; and keeping spending on homelessness support and youth jobs at their current levels. 

The letter also proposed eliminating a $175 million pension payment to cover non-teacher Chicago Public Schools (CPS) employees, which the city currently pays up front before seeking reimbursement from CPS. 

This past summer, CPS did not include the reimbursement in the budget it passed, but the city still expects them to make that reimbursement. Budget Director Annette Guzman said last week the city was still waiting on it but plans to make the same pension contribution in advance next year. 

Lopez told The Daily Line the administration didn’t respond or give an answer to the letter.  

Still, Johnson told reporters there’s never been a more collaborative budget process between a mayor and council — a view he’s reiterated throughout. 

The approved budget includes a $570 million tax increment financing surplus and new revenue from increased taxes and fees on checkout bags, rideshare trips downtown, streaming services, vehicle license transfers, garage and valet parking, pedicab and public chauffeur licenses and other fee and fine increases.  

At the same time, Johnson noted the budget makes critical investments in youth employment, gender-based violence support, affordable housing and mental health crisis response services.  

The newly revised proposal was unveiled over the weekend after the ordinances making up the city’s annual budget squeaked out of the budget and finance committees last week. That came before final votes on the budget were delayed Wednesday and Friday due to a lack of sufficient support to pass it. 

Related: Mayor’s revised 2025 spending plan narrowly advances through finance, budget committees 

Ald. William Hall (6), who voted yes, told The Daily Line the final budget was satisfactory to him because it avoided cuts to city services and layoffs and avoided increasing property taxes. 

“The most pressing thing for my ward was to make sure that people can still afford to live in the ward, as well as city workers,” Hall said. “We got a lot of city workers, both present as well as retired, and they were afraid of losing their jobs.”  

Hall also agreed with the mayor’s view about the budget representing an adjustment to a new approach.

“I think this is the first step in a different type of trust amongst the council at large,” Hall said. “Using a participatory approach is different for Chicago, but we got different results. We did not sell an asset, we did not enter into a bogus agreement in order to balance a budget. And I think we got to give credit to the mayor.”

But Ald. Maria Hadden (49), co-chair of the Council Progressive Caucus, blasted the way the mayor carried out the budget process during the council meeting — even while voting yes.  

“Mr. Mayor, we have heard a lot about your progressive values throughout this process, and I don't doubt them, but how we do things is just as important as what we do,” Hadden said. “The way you've led this process has left the City Council fractured, Chicagoans less trusting in government, and left our city in an extremely vulnerable position … This budget may have some progressive outcomes. The process to get here was anything but progressive.” 

Ald. Pat Dowell (3), the council’s finance chair, pushed back on opponents and said the budget is 70 percent structural modifications and 30 percent one-time solutions.

“This budget makes responsible choices for the proper stewardship of our city,” Dowell said. 

Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35) said the budget proposal included efficiencies from the start in the form of 3 percent across-the-board cuts to departments’ and offices’ projected 2025 budgets. 

“The truth is that this budget contains over $450 million in efficiencies and savings,” Ramirez-Rosa said. “The truth is that this budget is fiscally responsible, and it is a down payment down on our future because it continues to make a $272 million pension advance [payment].” 

Ramirez-Rosa added he didn’t love everything about the budget but appreciated continued investments in vital city services, mental health access and support for the homeless. 

The new proposal also included $500,000 for the city’s “Plow the Sidewalks” pilot program, which was a make-or-break request for progressive Ald. Daniel La Spata (1).  

“I do think, in spite of my frustrations and challenges, that democracy is represented in the budget that is in front of us today,” La Spata said. “[My constituents call on us] to invest in the city, to invest in our neighbors, to invest in our communities and do so in ways that are responsible and stable. And while I feel like there are imperfections in this budget, as there are any budget, I feel like we accomplish that for them.” 

The vote tallies for the various items that make up the budget are below:

Budget appropriation amendments (O2024-0014393) 

Annual Appropriation Ordinance (O2024-0013682) 

 

Management Ordinance (SO2024-0013673) 

 

Revenue Ordinance (SO2024-0013671)