Aldermen briefed on Mayor Brandon Johnson’s plan expect him to propose a 2025 property tax hike to help close Chicago’s severe budget gap.
Three aldermen who spoke to the Tribune on Monday said Johnson administration officials told them in a one-on-one meeting that the mayor would recommend property tax increases as part of a plan to balance the budget. Ta. The mayor’s team did not say how big the tax increase would be, city councilors said.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson is due to announce his 2025 spending plan on Wednesday. Mayoral spokeswoman Erin Connelly declined to comment Monday on the possibility of requesting a property tax increase.
Mayors face the daunting task of passing a budget by the state’s Dec. 31 deadline, with delays compressing timelines, intensifying political conflicts with City Council members, and most importantly… Worse, Mr Johnson faces a shortfall of nearly $1 billion, which is expected to require sacrifices. To fill it.
Mr. Johnson ran for mayor on a promise not to raise property taxes, but said in recent months that the possibility was on the table because of the large budget deficit.
To close this gap, Johnson has two basic tools: increase revenue and reduce costs.
As a candidate, Johnson advocated for a number of other tax increases that have so far failed to materialize, including increasing the real estate transfer tax, reinstating the corporate poll tax and increasing the hotel tax.
But he slammed his opponent Paul Vallas’ claim that Johnson’s “first step out of the box” was to raise property taxes.
“It’s clear that they don’t know much about budgets because they’ve had failures everywhere they go,” Johnson told Valas. “Listen, we’re not going to raise property taxes.”
He reiterated this promise in speeches and debates during his campaign.
“I’m the only candidate who won’t raise property taxes to make wealthy corporations finally pay their fair share,” he wrote on social media less than two weeks before the election.
Johnson kept his promise last year when he passed a budget that did not include property tax increases. However, a year and a half after his first term, the tide has changed.
Mr Johnson’s proposed increase in real estate transfer tax on luxury home purchases, which he hoped would generate $100 million a year for homeless services, was defeated. Other proposals, including a poll tax, a hotel tax, and a tax on securities transactions, failed to gain support.
Johnson’s decision to forego this year’s automatic inflation-linked property tax increase introduced by former Mayor Lori Lightfoot added to the deficit. Lightfoot’s policy of gradually increasing the city’s levy to match the rate of inflation was considered politically preferable to Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s staggering levy increases in 2015.
Chicago’s property tax levy has been steadily rising since 2015, when Mr. Emanuel pushed through a historic tax increase to begin paying down the city’s accumulated pension debt. The city’s total levy in 2014 was approximately $860 million. This year’s levy was $1.77 billion.
A large portion of the city’s property tax levy (about 80% in recent years) is already being used to pay for huge pension shortfalls.
But property taxes are one of the easiest revenue tools a mayor can have, and the clock is ticking, and Johnson must now close the huge budget gap his team predicted during the campaign. He said it would not be possible.
Mr Johnson told reporters last week: “We are now at a stage where income and expenditure are not evenly balanced at the bare minimum level.” “The structural damage is real. It has to be repaired.”
Earlier this month, Prime Minister Boris Johnson characterized layoffs in the city’s workforce as a “drastic and profound” solution to the financial crisis and vowed to “work to avoid it.”
“We need to put all options on the table,” he said, a common refrain these days among mayors who are open to raising property taxes.
Aldo. No. 22 Michael Rodriguez told the Tribune on Monday that any move by Johnson to reduce the city’s workforce is “unacceptable.”
“There’s a lot of private conversations going on,” Rodriguez said. “I don’t think he’s going to stop doing that.”
Rodriguez, who is one of the city council members tasked with persuading council members to support Johnson’s plan and helping pass the budget, said Lightfoot’s automatic inflation-indexed property tax increase was a challenge to the City Council. He also said that as mayor, it is “something that I will definitely be able to utilize.” Try to find money to balance the city’s books for next year.
First Published: October 28, 2024 4:24 PM CDT
