The City Council voted last month to grant a property tax incentive to an office building at 2017 N. Mendell St. over the objection of officials in Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration, who said the benefit was unnecessary. [Baker Development Corporation]

Chicago’s intricate web of tax incentives designed to spur private investment and development sapped more than $92 million in property tax revenues that would have otherwise flowed into the city’s coffers last year, an annual financial audit shows.

The figure is almost enough to eclipse the approximately $94 million hike in the city’s property tax levy that Mayor Lori Lightfoot squeezed through the City Council for the 2021 budget year.

The cost of the city’s tax breaks was one takeaway from the Annual Comprehensive Financial Report for the year 2021, which also showed the city beat its projections on both revenues and spending while making meager progress on shoring up its anemic pension funds.