Mayor Johnson, show leadership to passed Chicago's city budget

Chicago's budget breakdown should never have reached this point, no matter how complicated, difficult and contentious passing a city budget always is.

It's hard to remember the last time the city was only about two weeks away from its budget deadline of Dec. 31, with no clear path forward in sight and no mechanism to keep city government operating past the deadline.

Even some of Mayor Brandon Johnson's allies weren't ready to vote for a spending plan with a $68.5 million property tax increase and a bunch of other taxes and fees that the mayor put forward on Friday, which is surprising. But what really is astounding is that it got to this point, because who in Chicago doesn't know that no one has any appetite these days to pay higher taxes on, say, bottled water and Uber rides, not to mention higher property taxes?

Also astounding was the sound of shouting and the sight of some alderpersons scurrying out of the Council chambers Friday after the vote was delayed. Some gathered in the hallway for a press conference afterward.

Johnson called off the vote on the city's 2025 budget at the 11th hour because he didn't have the 26 votes he needed, as the Sun-Times' Fran Spielman reported Friday. The meeting was adjourned until Monday, and the mayor said he would, as he should, work on the budget over the weekend.

This is clearly not how a major city should operate. Johnson made the bad decision to wait too long to shore up a $17.3 billion budget that needed cost efficiencies — not just one-time cuts — to get more votes.

Alderpersons have put ideas on the table, not only efficiencies but also trimming the budget in places they say are padded, but they say Johnson hasn't acted on them. Some Council members even complain this whole debacle is a manufactured crisis by Johnson, who started the process late in hopes of steamrolling the budget he wanted through the Council.

If that's the case, all of Chicago now sees who has the upper hand — and it's not Johnson.

Learn to read the room

What is needed at this point is leadership — sitting across the table and compromising to do what's in the best interest of all Chicagoans. Only that will, one hopes, give the business and investment communities confidence that the city is heading in the right direction. Only that will reassure the rating agencies, which are taking a hard look at how the city is operating. Without that reassurance, the agencies could downgrade the city's rating, which in the long run could cost taxpayers tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars because of higher borrowing costs. Last month, S&P Global Ratings put the city on "CreditWatch with negative implications" because of the failure to get a budget passed.

All of this budgetary failure is like speeding along near the end of the runway at the old Meigs Field. The mayor and Council must achieve budgetary liftoff quickly, or it's blub, blub, blub, into the lake.

There's no excuse for a mayor to be so clueless about his support that he has to cancel a crucial vote at the very last minute. If the city doesn't pass a budget by Dec. 31, what happens? Will the state step in? Will city services degrade?

Johnson's got to learn to not only read the room, and in this case the room is telling him "no," but also figure out how to lead the room even when none of the choices — painful cuts, politically unacceptable tax hikes or finding ways to cover big payouts — are easy. In just one example of the kind of payouts that cost taxpayers, a Cook County jury last week awarded $79.89 million to a South Shore family whose 10-year-old girl was killed in a car crash caused by a Chicago police chase in 2020, and there other cases in the pipeline.

Johnson ought to start with cancelling any pet initiatives still in the budget, even worthy ones. We support the idea, for instance, of more jobs for young people. But how to pay for it? Perhaps, if Johnson's relationships with the business community were better, he could get corporate folks to support a public-private fund to foot the bill so taxpayers don't have to.

Furloughs for city workers, as well, have to be in the mix.

Some alderpersons expect Johnson will drop the proposed $68.5 million property tax increase over the weekend. But that will require finding other ways to balance the budget.

Both the Council and the mayor must step up, but it is really the mayor who ought to be taking the lead. Chicago will see if he's up to the job.
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