Mayor Brandon Johnson’s budget address pushed back two weeks in face of $1 billion deficit

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson will make his budget address two weeks later than anticipated this year as the city works to close a $982.4 million budget gap.

The original budget speech was expected for Oct. 16, officials from the city’s budget office told WBEZ, but is now slated for the day before Halloween on Oct. 30. The Council will then hold two weeks of budget hearings from Nov. 6 through Nov. 20 before a Thanksgiving break. That leaves two weeks for City Council members to consider amendments to the proposed budget. The mayor’s office hopes for a final vote on Dec. 4.

By law, a budget must be passed by Dec. 31.

“[It’s] no small number,” city Budget Director Annette Guzman said in an interview with WBEZ Monday, referring to the city’s nearly $1 billion budget gap. “And we need as much time and as much flexibility as possible to evaluate all the options that I said that were on the table, and not only do that internally, but speak with our departments, key stakeholders, labor unions as well as City Council.”

Guzman repeated that “everything is on the table” to make ends meet, including layoffs or furloughs and even a property tax increase, which Johnson has previously vowed to avoid.

“We don't control all of the levers as it relates to our revenue and creating new revenues,” Guzman said. “We have a slate of options that are going to require difficult choices and difficult votes.”

The expected Oct. 30 speech will be the latest budget address in recent years, but is still generally in line with past budget timelines. In 2020, when the city was facing a $1.2 billion gap for the following fiscal year, the budget address was delivered on Oct. 21.

Budget season comes after a rocky few months for Johnson in the City Council. The body recently voted 33 to 14 to attempt to override Johnson’s decision to nix a controversial gunshot detection technology known as ShotSpotter — an ordinance Johnson swiftly vowed to veto. Johnson and his Council allies also couldn’t garner enough support for one of his top picks to lead the powerful Zoning Committee, forcing Johnson to change course.

But Guzman denied that the delay had anything to do with ongoing tensions with the City Council. Instead, she said, they want to give the mayor’s office more time to craft a budget in conjunction with the City Council.

“That's not what’s driving this at all,” she said. “We’ve had decades of budgets that were rammed through City Council without any prior discussion with members of City Council … and so this is really about hearing and taking the time.”

To help close a $223 million end-of-year deficit, the city earlier this month implemented a hiring freeze through the end of the year. The move is “working,” Guzman said, and the budget office anticipates it will save approximately $100 million.

The city faced swift backlash from alderpersons over concerns the police and fire departments would be impacted by the citywide freeze. The budget office clarified two days later that public safety personnel required under the consent decree are exempt, and Guzman said Monday the decision over which positions fall under the freeze are a “a case-by-case, day-by-day conversation” with the police and fire departments.

“They know their needs, and so they focus on their priority needs based on their hiring at any given time,” Guzman said, “because they know they have capacity, they can only hire so many people at one time. Classes are still going through.”

The dual budget gaps are driven in part by a $175 million hole for both 2024 and 2025 caused by a dispute between Chicago Public Schools and the city over who should pay for non-teacher, CPS employee pensions. In a stunning rebuke of the mayor, CPS did not include the payment in its budget this year, despite having paid it in prior years.

Guzman said the city is still counting on that payment to be made, even as the district’s leadership is in question as Johnson has worked to push out the current CEO.

Mariah Woelfel and Tessa Weinberg cover Chicago politics for WBEZ.