We don’t know if Chicago’s current-year budget shortfall has changed appreciably from a month ago, when the city’s chief financial officer at the time said the full advance pension payment that had been budgeted might not be made.
But it’s good news nonetheless that Mayor Brandon Johnson last week assured bond investors that his administration indeed will follow through before the year is out.
If it seems like Johnson and the City Council majority bloc that passed the 2026 budget over his objections have been continuing to wage that battle ever since, it’s because they have. One of the key areas of disagreement between the two sides was whether to continue to plow more than the minimum the law requires into the city’s four dramatically underfunded pension funds, a practice begun under Mayor Lori Lightfoot.
Johnson last year initially proposed lowering the advance payment to $121 million from about $260 million the year before. But the council majority insisted on the full $260 million.
Then the administration made just $130 million of the budgeted $260 million in January and said it would pay the remainder later in the year. So aldermanic opponents of the mayor reacted strongly when Steven Mahr, then Johnson’s acting CFO, hedged last month on whether the city would make good.
Mahr left his post late last month, and his permanent replacement, former Fitch Ratings Senior Director Ashlee Gabrysch, starts later this month.
So the city’s annual meeting with the investment community came at an inconvenient time given the personnel upheaval on the fifth floor. Johnson, in his address, quickly ended the uncertainty, saying the city was only waiting for Cook County to distribute delayed property tax revenues to make the payment.
“Because of property tax delays from the county, it’s a question of when, not if,” he said.
Alders who pushed last year for the full amount weren’t giving Johnson kudos. “It took sustained pressure from our coalition to move him to action,” 39th Ward Ald. Samantha Nugent said in a statement. “That’s not leadership. It’s catch-up.”
We suspect she’s correct. And it’s a credit to that aldermanic bloc, which includes council members of all ethnicities from every side of the city, that it’s hung together in the face of frequent mayoral criticism and pressure.
But the outcome still is positive and worthy of note. The last thing this administration should be doing at a time when Chicago’s credit rating is hanging by a thread is give analysts more fodder for future downgrades to add to the four Johnson already has amassed on his three-year watch.
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