Three aldermen in a 29-member coalition are saying Mayor Brandon Johnson’s 2027 budget proposal raises taxes, spending and borrowing without cutting costs. They also say his budget speech was aimed at winning reelection, not balancing the city’s books.
Ald. Marty Quinn (13th) called the plan an “anti-growth budget.” Ald. Silvana Tabares (23rd) called it a non-starter. Ald. Lopez (15th) said it is “based on fantasy and political optics.”
A campaign speech
“Well, yesterday’s budget was a campaign reelection speech,” Tabares said.
Quinn said the address was “a campaign address” meant to “motivate a base of voters to get the mayor reelected.”
“I think it is concerning to many of us that this budget, again, is based on fantasy and political optics, as opposed to trying to find solutions to keep not only the government running, but Chicago thriving,” Lopez said.
Mayoral tax heavy budget penalizes city jobs, growth
“There’s a [few] things that I’m focusing on right now,” Quinn said.
A coalition of 29 aldermen sent the mayor a letter weeks ago listing three things that cannot be in the budget, Quinn said: no property tax increase, no head tax or other tax on growth and no use of state money from Springfield that does not exist to balance the budget.
The budget has no property tax increase, Lopez said. Instead it relies on a collection of fines, fees and taxes, including a head tax, that many aldermen have already called non-starters, he said.
The mayor’s proposed Equitable Employer Tax, a repeat from last year, would charge companies with more than 125 employees $25 per employee per month, Quinn said.
He said companies could avoid the tax by moving to the suburbs or by cutting staff below 125 employees.
Lopez agreed. Asked whether businesses would leave the city or state, or lay off workers to drop below the threshold, he said they might.
“I think that all of the above are more likely to happen before they pay one dollar of that head tax,” Lopez said. “You are showing people that we are not interested in having businesses thrive in the City of Chicago.”
“The mayor’s budget’s an anti-growth budget,” Quinn said. “Anti-growth.”
Quinn agreed businesses facing a tax on job creation may think twice about starting or staying in Chicago, he said. His ward sits on the city’s edge.
“With the 13th Ward being a border ward, there’s opportunities right across Harlem or right across 65th Street and you wouldn’t have to pay that extra tax,” he said. “So, that’s a problem.”
Asked about a head tax break for companies that invest in certain south and west side neighborhoods, Lopez was not persuaded.
“Right,” Lopez said. “That sounds nice, but basically you’re legislating how to pay Peter while robbing Paul at the same time.”
A company outside those neighborhoods would be pushed to leave its own neighborhood and relocate elsewhere in in hopes of avoiding the head tax, Lopez said.
Tabares said the council already rejected a tax on jobs last year. Now the mayor is back with it under a new name, she said, but the structure is the same and he is not listening.
“On the head taxes, we told the mayor in September that we’re not going to support a tax on jobs and the council rejected it last year,” she said.
“He’s more focused on his campaign than building a budget,” she said. “He keeps building the budget around the head tax over and over again because he’s focused on his campaign. His budget speech was a campaign speech.”
Tabares said the mayor has a spending problem. Aldermen worry about pensions and the city’s long-term debt, she said and she does not believe a tax on jobs will fix either.
TIF sweep
Quinn said the mayor issued a Tax Increment Financing surplus declaration of $250 million.
“Projects that enhance growth are going to be cut because the mayor is going to sweep these TIFs and utilize upwards of $280 million, or 52% of the sweep, to keep Chicago Public Schools up and running,” he said.
Planned job creation and economic development projects will stop as a result, Quinn said.
Gaming money left on the table
Tabares said the council’s job is to review the budget and the mayor’s job is to carry it out.
“The rest of the proposal, we’re going to be reviewing in the next couple of months. And the mayor’s job is to implement the budget. Our job, the alderman, is to review it and he failed to do that last year with video gaming terminals,” she said.
The council approved video gaming terminals last year but the mayor has failed to put them in place, Tabares said.
“That revenue right there could have been revenue to close the budget gap for this year,” she said.
A fee on deliveries
The mayor also floated a new tax on package deliveries, Quinn said. The Package Tax is a long shot because it depends on approval from state lawmakers in Springfield.
“The mayor talked about slapping a fee onto deliveries,” he said. “A delivery tax fee. I don’t know if he has the legal authority to do that but that is wildly unpopular and he’s going ahead with it. He’s looking for 15 cents per package.”
The fee would apply to Amazon deliveries, food deliveries and “any kind of delivery a person could expect,” Quinn said.
“And that’s yet another tax on working people, right?” Quinn added.
Higher lease tax
The mayor also proposed increasing the Personal Property Lease Transaction tax, which applies to items that can be rented. Quinn said the increase could hurt businesses in the 13th Ward.
“At the end of the day, if you’re renting things out, you’re going to pay 20% on that rental if you’re in the city of Chicago,” he said. “It’s the highest in the country.”
Under the mayor’s proposal, automobile rentals would stay taxed at 15% and movie and film equipment rentals at 11%.
While the PPLT is often discussed in the context of large businesses, it applies to businesses of all sizes with higher rates possibly translating to higher operating costs for small businesses, meaning higher costs for consumers as well, according to a 2025 story by the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce.
Chicago’s lease tax covers both tangible and intangible property. Taxed intangibles would include digital software, SaaS business applications, digital streaming and media content, AI platforms and cloud computing and storage. Tangible items include rented apparel and goods, and office and event furniture.
“Even bouncy houses for a birthday party,” Quinn said.
Lopez opposes the increase.
“They want to increase the personal property lease tax,” he said. “They want to double it after we just raised it last budget [2026 season]. I think we need to take a pause on raising and allow businesses the ability to catch their breath as they continue forward with some of these taxes.”
Businesses are already struggling, Lopez said and the increase would hit them again on things they use. He said restaurants trying to adapt with takeout would also face a new bag tax.
Tax after tax, same, same
The proposal also continues the social media amusement responsibility tax, known as the SMART tax. It adds a packaging waste tax of 15 cents on each non-medical, non-food container or package and changes the tax on sports wagering increasing its tax rate from 10.25 to 20%.
Tabares agreed the budget is very tax heavy and questioned where the efficiencies (budget cuts) are? She said this year’s proposal is the same as last year’s, with no real changes and it revisits the same taxing ideas.
“Tax after tax after tax,” she said. “That’s not the only solution we should be looking at.”
“That’s all he knows,” Lopez said of the new taxes. “He never once said the word ‘cut.’ Always more and more and more to appease his base.”
Business groups push back
The Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, joined by a coalition of business organizations, said taxing employers to achieve “keeping and adding jobs remains as bad an idea as it was last year.”
The chamber said a growing economy brings in more tax revenue to pay for city services. It accused the mayor of recklessly proposing hundreds of millions of dollars in new spending while the city faces a projected $882 million deficit while asking taxpayers to cover the cost. With cities across the country competing for the same jobs and employers, the chamber said, those policies will have consequences beyond this budget cycle.
The chamber urged the City Council to reject any budget that hurts Chicago’s competitiveness.
It called on the mayor to work with businesses and other stakeholders on realistic, sustainable solutions that protect essential services without compromising the city’s economic future.
More spending, no reforms
The budget relies on taxes and spending, with no cost-cutting measures to close the gap, Quinn said.
“And we haven’t necessarily gotten into the reforms. There were no reforms in the proposal,” he said. “We’re not talking about reining in spending. We’re talking about growing spending to the tune of $130 million.”
Lopez said the budget includes $130 million in new spending, $288 million in increased spending and $130 million in new programs.
“Where is the mayor proposing to be more cost efficient in government?” Tabares asked. “We don’t see that. Before taxes, what are we doing to be more efficient and be more cost effective in the way we operate in the government.”
“We need to be looking at operational efficiencies,” Tabares said. The administration does not do the hard work of running the government better, she said.
Asked about efficiencies, Lopez said, “There are none.”
Police and violence prevention
Quinn said cuts to the Chicago Police Department’s budget are also being considered.
“The budget removes, I believe,130 or 140 positions and replaces them with non-sworn officers,” Quinn said. “Very problematic.”
Tabares has long criticized the budgeted Community Violence Intervention program, known as CVI.
“The state has given millions for that program and where’s the accountability for that funding?” she said.
The money goes to nonprofits and peacekeepers, who are used as an alternative to law enforcement, Tabares said. She said 23rd Ward residents want more police officers keeping them safe, not peacekeepers, and a new 8th police district.
Gunshot detection
The mayor’s proposal includes a gunshot detection pilot program in six south and west side wards.
Lopez said the 7th police district is among them. Lopez’s 15th Ward boundaries, redistricted in May 2022 is covered by multiple police districts, the 7th (Englewood), 8th (Chicago Lawn) and 9th (Deering).
Nine bids for the “soon-to-launch’ programs are still being “weighed” by the city, according to Chief Procurement Officer, Sharla Roberts, an October 2026 WTTW story by Heather Cherone said.
Lopez opposed decommissioning ShotSpotter and previewed a replacement pilot program in January 2025 at the Gage Park Field House that was ignored by Mayor Johnson.
“What a farce,” Lopez said. “This is strictly a political stunt because he knows voters want the technology, which he has left us without for nearly two years.
And now, as he’s running for re-election, he decides it is the time to say, ‘Oh, I’m going to bring something back.’ Nobody knows what that something is. Nobody knows who the vendor is, the technology’s reach, triangulation, cost or technical specifications,” he said.
“But yeah, we’re supposed to believe that this is magically going to come into fruition before the election,” Lopez said.
The budget has carried a $5 million line item for gunshot detection technology since 2024, he said. Lopez said he did not know next year’s amount.
“But either way, for two years he’s billed taxpayers for a technology he does not use,” he said.
Smart Streets
The mayor’s Smart Streets program would expand camera-enforced automated ticketing to protect bike and bus lanes, including towing illegally parked vehicles.
“So cameras are okay when you want to catch people in a bike lane on Archer, but they are bad when it comes to catching criminals,” Lopez said.
Borrowing for police misconduct settlements
The mayor’s plan includes issuing bonds to pay police misconduct claims to people who were wrongfully convicted under a 2027 Global Settlement. The mayor says the settlement will save $300 million to $400 million.
“I think that’s going to have an adverse impact on our bond rating,” Quinn said.
Nothing requires the city to take on debt to pay those claims, he said. He said borrowing would also hurt the city’s credit rating and its budget structure.
On Wednesday, the mayor said the city’s budget is 76% structured. Quinn disputed that. Selling bonds to increase that percentage is a problem, he said, because the city would be paying debt on what may be an operating expense.
“That’s going to be a point of discussion here very soon,” he said.
More settlements tied to Detective Reynaldo Guevara’s are coming, Tabares said.
The plan includes about $480 million in borrowing for settlements, she said. The city should pay the settlements but it should plan for them in the budget instead of financing them with long-term debt.
The city cannot afford another credit downgrade, Tabares said. Rating agencies will be watching how the city manages its money and borrowing will cost taxpayers more later if the plan passes, she said.
Pensions
The mayor’s plan includes a 2027 pension payment of about $363 million and he blamed past administrations for the shortfall.
“We have to pay for it,” Lopez said. “That’s it.”
The payment is the cost of doing business, Lopez said. The city can either make direct payments as retirees draw benefits, or hire more employees who pay into their own pension funds, he said.
“The problem is that instead of having three full-time employees working to every one employee in retirement, we have a one-to-one ratio,” he said. “So, one employee pays in while another retiree pulls out. That is unsustainable.”
‘This is a wish list’
The proposal adds operating expenses instead of cutting them, Quinn said. He pointed to spending on the Department on Aging and on gun violence programs, plus 7,000 summer jobs for youth at a cost of $24 million.
When asked about other proposed spending, Quinn agreed it raised the question of where the money would come from. That spending includes a $30.9 million library subsidy, $30 million for homeless programs, additional mental health clinics and $7 million to pay early childhood educators.
“This is a wish list,” he said.
Quinn said the spending is not realistic with an estimated $890 million budget gap. He called the plan an election budget meant to persuade voters to reelect the mayor.
No outside help
Quinn said the city will get no federal money and no “magic money” from Springfield during the fall veto session. The state is $2.2 billion in debt and the governor has said to lower expectations for the November and December veto sessions, Quinn said.
“We have the taxpayers expecting us to tighten up the belt buckle here,” Quinn said. “We’ve got to make some tough decisions.”
Uncollected debt
The mayor said the city’s Department of Finance collected more than $500 million in debt owed to the city. The department sets payment plans based on a person’s ability to pay. The mayor’s plan projects $6 million in revenue this year from a debt relief and amnesty program covering unpaid parking and moving violation tickets.
Asked how the city knows the program will bring in $6 million, Lopez said, “It’s a best guess.”
Quinn and Tabares both pointed to more than $8 billion the city is owed.
“The Office of the Inspector General has found over $8 billion in debt that the city owes,” Tabares said. “What’s our plan to collect that debt? We keep taxing people and jobs but there’s no plan to collect the debt that is owed to the city.”
Aldermen plan are reviewing 2025’s Ernst & Young report that cost the city $3.2 million and pinpointed between $500 million and $1.4 billion in savings and new revenue.
“The truth is, there’s $8 billion worth of debt out there that hasn’t been collected for the City of Chicago,” Quinn said. “The mayor continues to struggle with putting an action plan together to collect that; a real problem when you’re talking about filling budget gaps.”
Holding the line
The council’s budget review is just beginning.
“So, for all of those reasons, we have a lot of work to do moving forward in the next couple of months before Dec. 31,” Quinn said. “This is the first step in the process. But to be clear, this was very much a campaign budget address. It’s not rooted in reality, right? This is like a Nerf ball. It’s fake.”
Tabares said the Ernst & Young report that the mayor ignored is key to helping to balance the budget.
“The coalition that I signed onto, that letter last month with the 29, we laid out our priorities and he’s not listening to us,” Tabares said. “We want him to look at the Ernst & Young report that he commissioned for $3 million that identified budget cuts and didn’t use.”
“You know what? Stay tuned, because we’re going to get through it this weekend and begin questions come Monday,” Lopez said. “I will say that cuts and efficiencies and belt-tightening are not part of the mayor’s vocabulary this year, just like they weren’t last year with this administration.”
Lopez said he, Quinn, Tabares, Curtis and other aldermen will once again hold the line on behalf of residents.
“We know on the southwest side how to live within our means and it’s about time City Hall does the same,” he said.