The mayor’s proposed 2024 budget is balanced, but it does nothing to address the city’s worsening financial situation. While the budget message is filled with rhetoric about making a “down payment” on his campaign promise to build a “better, stronger, safer Chicago,” it does nothing of the sort.
Mayor Brandon Johnson’s budget does little to advance beyond predecessor Lori Lightfoot’s programs. Contrast that with the $150 million in additional funding for migrants, less than what is projected to be needed.
The mayor’s “down payment” on his campaign promises opens only two of the six community mental health centers closed by Rahm Emanuel when he was mayor. The restored City Department of the Environment is simply a shift of existing City Hall environmental policy positions with new positions added to a department that is a shell of its former self and will not have any regulatory enforcement authority. The vaunted youth jobs initiative is a paltry increase of 4,000 short-lived summer jobs, offering less than what is actually needed.
The administration is silent on whether it will fill police vacancies or replace the meager 50 officers who will be promoted to detective. Meanwhile, 398 police positions are going to be civilianized, the mayor claiming the Police Department will “give others an opportunity to serve … without necessarily being a police officer.” Spin it however he might, not filling police vacancies or filling them with civilians effectively defunds the police.
What is also certain is that those civilians filling police vacancies will do little to restore local police beat integrity, improve police response times that currently see more than half of high-priority 911 calls not having a police officer available or improve arrest rates, which are at 12%.
By the city declaring a record $434 million in tax increment financing surplus, the school district will receive $226 million. This constitutes a major windfall as the schools, like the city, lose no revenues from the current diversion of 15.5% of all property tax revenues to TIF districts. This is because tax rates automatically rise to meet the taxing district levy requests.
Added to that record TIF windfall is another $45 million in pensions costs. The city will use almost half its $100 million share of the TIF surplus to cover the annual contribution for nonteaching school district employees drawing retirement checks from the Municipal Employees’ Annuity and Benefit Fund.
Imagine what the money the mayor’s office has already committed to the migrant crisis could mean for the long-neglected neighborhoods on the South and West sides.
If breaking his campaign promises is the result of Johnson facing the reality of actually running the city and being responsible for its fiscal health, this more sober approach is not reflected in the management of the migrant crisis, which, if not contained, could double in cost, or in providing CPS with another massive TIF windfall without financial offsets.
Don’t expect any serious budget debate as the mayor’s City Council allies rush to pass the budget.
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Expect almost half the budget to once again pass through without any scrutiny. City finance general spending is explicitly nondepartmental, and there is no hearing in the City Council dedicated to its contents. The Better Government Association reported that for 2023, “43.2% of the taxpayer spending authorized by City Council underwent almost no public inquiry or debate.” These are pensions and benefits, bonds and loan payments and interest, and outside contracting, as well as the capital construction costs paid out of the water and sewer funds.
City Council floor leader Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa expects smooth sailing in the council after just two weeks of budget hearings, the Sun-Times reported. The extremely modest request by a number of aldermen to provide the Council Office of Financial Analysis and the Legislative Reference Bureau with more resources and staffing needed to make informed decisions was rejected by the mayor’s City Council allies. According to Ramirez-Rosa, it’s simply not a priority of his colleagues.
In conclusion, the promise of change, which Johnson’s campaign embodied, appears to be fading as the budget is unveiled. The lack of scrutiny and transparency in the budget process only compounds the concerns.
Chicago deserves a budget that genuinely addresses its pressing needs and revitalizes long-neglected communities. This is not that budget.
Paul Vallas is an adviser for the Illinois Policy Institute. He ran for Chicago mayor this year and in 2019 and was previously budget director for the city and CEO of Chicago Public Schools.
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