Chicago City Council set for final vote on Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s 2021 budget plan
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Chicago’s City Council is scheduled to vote Tuesday on Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s $12.8 billion budget for next year.
Lightfoot’s spending plan includes a $94 million property tax hike with a provision to raise property taxes annually by an amount tied to the consumer price index. It also includes a 3-cent gas tax hike and relies on an increase in fines and fees collection, including a plan to boost revenue by ticketing residents who are caught going 6 mph over the limit by speed cameras.
In addition, Lightfoot is asking to refinance $501 million in city debt for the 2021 budget, which would provide a jolt of new revenue next year but likely cost taxpayers more down the road. Similar borrowing tactics under Mayors Richard M. Daley and Rahm Emanuel drew deep criticism, but the Lightfoot administration said the city’s current financial disaster makes such a move appropriate.
Lightfoot has spent weeks lining up the 26 votes needed to pass what she calls her “pandemic budget” through the City Council, with aldermen pushing back hardest on the property tax increase.
Property tax hikes have traditionally been the most politically difficult way for Chicago mayors to raise money and there has been plenty of griping from aldermen that they shouldn’t be called on to vote to pull more from their coronavirus pandemic-battered constituents’ wallets.
Lightfoot, in turn, has said the proposed tax increase is fiscally responsible and amounts to a small hit for city residents.
Opponents of the budget kept up the pressure to defeat it the day before the vote. At a Monday news conference, members of the United Working Families community organization and other grassroots groups called on aldermen to vote no.
Emma Tai, executive director of United Working Families, said Lightfoot ignored progressive ideas such as a proposed tax on Amazon and other retailers with large successful delivery operations in Chicago in favor of a property tax hike that will hurt struggling homeowners and renters.
“Instead of a moral budget, we got a do-nothing budget,” Tai said.
“It should not pass on the heels of the largest protest movement in U.S. history,” she added. “In the midst of a pandemic, in Chicago’s most violent year in recent memory, and with working and poor people fighting off illegal evictions, we need and deserve so much more than this budget has to offer.”
As she’s negotiated with the City Council, Lightfoot has had to fight what she has characterized as her reluctance to play politics with aldermen by making concessions in the spending plan or offering carrots in specific wards to increase the support.
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Unlike the political wheeler-dealer who last occupied the fifth floor at City Hall, Lightfoot has said she wouldn’t horse trade for votes.
But bowing to the pressure from aldermen, she has made changes to her budget plan in recent weeks, such as eliminating hundreds of proposed layoffs and increasing anti-violence funding, that could help her get the backing she needs.
Lightfoot’s proposed five-year, $3.7 billion capital plan also should get her help from trade unions in convincing aldermen.
In 2015, Emanuel got 35 aldermen to vote in favor of a budget package for the next year that was larded with $755 million in new taxes and fees, including a record $543 million property tax increase to pay for police and fire pensions, an additional $45 million property tax hike for school construction and more than $62 million in new garbage pickup fees.
Lightfoot might not get to 35 yes votes for this package. Her 2020 budget passed 39-11, and Lightfoot took a combative approach to aldermen who voted no. After the vote, Lightfoot launched a website shaming Chicago aldermen who voted against her first budget, casting it as a civic tool for the public despite criticism that it was petty and bullying.
Two of the aldermen who voted no on that plan, Ald. Maria Hadden, 49th, and Ald. Andre Vasquez, 40th, have said they would support this year’s budget.
Behind the scenes, Lightfoot has worked hard to generate support for her budget. In a meeting with the Black Caucus, Lightfoot told aldermen that those who don’t support her budget shouldn’t expect their wards to be prioritized and added, “Don’t come to me for s--- for the next three years” if they didn’t support her spending plan.
Lightfoot also approached the Latino Caucus to remove exceptions in Chicago’s Welcoming City Ordinance, the city’s sanctuary law, that allow police to cooperate with federal immigration authorities under limited circumstances. The city’s welcoming ordinance has been criticized by activists for years due to such allowances.
The move was pitched as a budget sweetener to help secure their support, though some Latino aldermen balked at that and she decided not to link it to the budget.
Check back for updates.
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