Fran Spielman

Mayor Brandon Johnson on Sunday was briefing members of the Chicago City Council on his latest ideas to get his 2025 budget approved by year's end.

The mayor said last week's unanimous vote against his $300 million property tax increase just delayed the budget process, dragging it well into December. “It’s time to grow up," Johnson said. "The people of Chicago don’t have time for that.”

Mayoral aides and some Council members have agreed to cut the proposed increase in half as talks continue. The largest chunk of new revenue — $128 million — will come from raising the personal property lease tax on cloud computing to 11%. "I think we can go deeper," Ald. Pat Dowell, Johnson's…

The overwhelming vote was largely symbolic. Negotiations to reduce or eliminate the property tax hike and replace it with a mix of new revenue and reprogrammed federal pandemic relief funds began last weekend.

Twenty-two of the City Council’s 50 members met Saturday with top mayoral aides, including Johnson’s budget team, to begin negotiations that, some alderpersons said, should have started long before Johnson belatedly introduced his $17.3 billion budget.

The increase would be Chicago's largest in a decade, but alderpersons hope to force the mayor back to the bargaining table to find other revenue sources, budget cuts, or both.

Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration has reason to be on edge. The CTA's Red Line extension, the O'Hare Airport modernization and a mass immigrant deportation are all threatened under Trump, senior mayoral adviser Jason Lee said.

Choose Chicago is preparing to create a "Tourism Improvement District" that would raise millions, more than doubling the marketing agency's budget. At downtown hotels opting in, the tax on hotel rooms would rise to 18.9%. The current rate of 17.4% already is highest among major U.S. convention…

Ald. Anthony Beale predicted an emboldened Chicago City Council will reduce or eliminate the $300 million property tax increase and make other major changes to Johnson's $17.3 billion budget proposal.

The mayor is breaking a campaign promise not to raise property taxes by proposing a $300 million increase to deal with an expected shortfall next year of nearly $1 billion.