Chicago – October 31, 2024
Mayor Brandon Johnson on Wednesday proposed Chicago’s largest property tax hike in almost a decade as part of his $17.3 billion budget plan for next year.
The $300 million increase that would hit Chicago homeowners, landlords and other property owners is a major flip-flop from Johnson’s campaign vow not to employ the widely unpopular, and often politically toxic, revenue-raising tactic. It is also one his team justified as necessary in order to balance a projected $982.4 million shortfall in 2025, along with sweeping tax increment financing funds and eliminating hundreds of vacant positions across city government. More than half of those will come from the Police Department.
In his budget address to the City Council, Johnson said the tax hike was the only path forward after previous administrations “governed with this veneer of fiscal responsibility, when in fact they weren’t.”
“This budget currently includes a property tax increase of $300 million to fund and keep our commitment to fund not just our pension contributions, but to fund the future of our city,” Johnson said to a packed room of aldermen, union officials, community organizers and concerned citizens. “This is tough. It is. It is something that I grappled with for weeks and weeks. We didn’t make this decision lightly.”
Johnson made the case that the primary alternative — layoffs — would be devastating to the city’s workforce, an argument that will likely please his labor base but could bristle property owners who see it as inflating their tax bills to prop up government workers. The mayor also took a jab at corporate interests, which he said impeded his wishes for progressive revenue streams that could have prevented this outcome: “I would certainly much rather tax the rich.”
In keeping with his messaging on racial equity, Johnson repeatedly highlighted the struggles of Black Chicagoans. “The Negro Removal Act has been a decade of negligence for our people,” he said while touting his $1.25 billion bond plan that includes investments in affordable housing. “We’re going to keep building.”
The mayor closed the nearly hour-long speech with a pointed defense of his team’s financial prudence, highlighting his and his Budget Director Annette Guzman’s identity as Black people.
