Chicago’s recurring budget gaps have challenged city administrations for more than two decades, but the projected 2026 deficit of more than $1.1 billion underscored the need for a longer-term approach. Mayor Brandon Johnson’s response was to create the Chicago Financial Future Task Force in May 2025, an independent group of 23 business, labor, community and policy leaders charged with examining the city’s long-term fiscal challenges and identifying options for addressing them.
Over the past 14 months, the task force studied Chicago’s finances, reviewed best practices from peer cities and engaged more than 500 residents through surveys, focus groups and town halls. Out of this extraordinary volunteer undertaking by civic leaders from across Chicago came a final report with 58 options for the city to consider as it works to strengthen its long-term fiscal future.
But the task force’s most surprising finding was not about pensions, taxes or budget deficits. It was about Chicagoans themselves. Far from being disengaged from the city’s fiscal challenges, residents demonstrated a clear understanding of the seriousness of this issue to the future of Chicago. More than 75% of survey respondents said they were very concerned that city expenses are growing faster than revenues, and more than 8 in 10 reported following budget discussions “regularly” and “occasionally.”
Yet the engagement process revealed a real problem that must be addressed if Chicago hopes to attain long-term fiscal sustainability. While residents are paying attention, many do not feel they understand how budget decisions are made or priorities are set. The challenge we are facing as a city is not simply fiscal — it is civic as well. Building long-term financial stability will require rebuilding confidence in the decision-making process itself.
Through the surveys, focus groups and town halls, residents consistently evaluated policy choices with fairness, accountability and visible impact front and center. They wanted to understand who would bear the costs, who would benefit, whether government was operating efficiently and how proposed changes would improve daily life.
Participants repeatedly emphasized that difficult trade-offs are acceptable when they are explained clearly, implemented transparently and viewed as fair. This finding has enormous implications for the path ahead.
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Chicago’s fiscal challenges developed over decades and will take years of sustained effort to address. No single policy change, budget action or revenue measure will solve them. Progress will require a combination of operational reforms, pension and liability management, economic growth strategies, potential revenue changes and continued cooperation among city leaders, state officials, businesses, and labor and community organizations.
But none of this will succeed without continued and significant interaction with residents. Civic engagement cannot be treated as a one-time exercise conducted at the beginning of a process and forgotten once decisions are made.
That means the same extensive level of transparency, public education and community dialogue that informed the task force’s work must continue as policymakers evaluate options and implement reforms. Lasting fiscal solutions will depend not only on sound policy but also on maintaining public trust and meaningful opportunities for residents to remain part of the conversation.
If Chicago is going to make the changes necessary to strengthen its fiscal future, civic engagement will not simply support the solution. It must be part of the solution — an especially appropriate and poignant finding as we mark the 250th anniversary of the signing of our nation’s Declaration of Independence.
The issues facing Chicago today are very different from those confronting the 13 Colonies in 1776, but both raise a fundamental question of governance: How can leaders earn public confidence when asking people to accept difficult trade-offs and shared obligations? Durable solutions still depend on the consent and participation of the people affected by them.
That kind of consent can either be renewed or lost in this budget process. Chicago’s projected $680 million budget gap for 2027 is both an accounting problem and a governance problem. Can citizens make themselves do something hard, accept real trade-offs and trust that the burden is being shared fairly? The task force found that Chicagoans will say yes to that, provided the process treats them as partners rather than spectators.
Pension reform, spending discipline and new revenue can close the math. Only earned consent closes the rest.
Chicago’s fiscal future will turn on the same thing the country has always run on, which is whether the people and the government they pay for can keep faith with each other when the choices get hard.
Karen Freeman-Wilson is president and CEO of the Chicago Urban League. Jim Reynolds is chairman and CEO of Loop Capital. They are co-chairs of the Chicago Financial Future Task Force.
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