Mayor Lori Lightfoot scored a relatively narrow but important victory Tuesday as the City Council adopted her $12.8 billion budget for 2021 that relies on a property tax hike and controversial debt refinancing to help close a massive deficit.
Aldermen voted 28-22 in support of Lightfoot’s $94 million property tax increase. The mayor’s full budget also passed 29-21.
It wasn’t as decisive a margin as her 2020 spending plan got, to say nothing of the overwhelming budget wins enjoyed most years by her predecessors.
But given the unusually bad financial forecast for the city during the COVID-19 pandemic and her combative relationship with many aldermen, Lightfoot happily accepted it, saying she would celebrate like last year with a scotch, a cigar and a steak.
She thanked those who voted for the plan and struck a conciliatory tone toward those who opposed it.
“I hope what Chicagoans who were able to watch the City Council debate also understand is that you witnessed democracy in action,” she said. “It is often messy, confounding and, at times, frustrating. But for me, it remains the best system of government in the world.”
Lightfoot’s spending plan has plenty of bad news, though the proposed property tax increase wasn’t as high as what some aldermen had feared she would seek, making her job lining up at least 26 votes somewhat easier than it might have been.
It also includes a provision to raise property taxes annually by an amount tied to the consumer price index. It raises gas taxes by 3 cents 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.
And most nonunion city workers will be required to take five unpaid furlough days during the year, all part of a package to address a shortfall of around $1.2 billion.
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 votes needed to pass what she calls her “pandemic budget” through the City Council. Aldermen pushed back hardest on the property tax increase, a politically difficult vote at the best of times and especially unpopular with the city’s economy hit hard by coronavirus closures and layoffs.
Lightfoot defended the proposed hike as fiscally responsible and a small hit for city residents.
Black Caucus Chairman Ald. Jason Ervin, 28th, thanked the mayor for increasing violence prevention funding and agreeing to a pilot program in which crisis teams rather than just police officers will respond to mental health incidents. Sixteen members of the Black Caucus voted in favor of the property tax hike, and four members voted against it.
“We won’t be judged by the great things that happen downtown, or the things that happen out in Sauganash to Beverly, but what did we do to help the residents in North Lawndale, South Shore or even out far south in Altgeld Gardens?” Ervin said. “Because today, the things we’re doing today, they’re not easy. But today’s decisions are necessary.”
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.
But bowing to the pressure from council members, she has made several significant changes to her budget plan in recent weeks, such as eliminating hundreds of proposed layoffs and increasing anti-violence funding, that helped her get the backing she needs.
After the vote, Lightfoot defended the deals she struck and said she doesn’t see them as being inconsistent with her vow not to horse trade.
“I don’t buy votes and I never will, but the democratic process is about compromise,” she said.
The mayor also said she isn’t worried about the tight margins.
“I govern to 26,” she said. “A rubber stamp City Council does a disservice not only to the members but the people.”
Ald. Susan Sadlowski Garza, 10th, cited the canceled layoffs as a key reason for her supporting the budget.
Ald. Chris Taliaferro, 29th, downplayed the cost of the property tax hike, saying the $56 a year it translates to for homes worth $250,000 is “the cost of one meal for my family.” That money, however, will improve safety for residents, he said.
Not everyone was convinced by the argument.
Northwest Side Ald. Rossana Rodriguez Sanchez, 33rd, voted no. She said the budget fails to respond to the realities in Chicago, both with people suffering economic hardship during the pandemic and those calling for more social justice in the city government’s outlook.
“This is a budget that relies on regressive revenue measures like parking meters and ticketing instead of looking at alternatives directed at making the wealthy pay,” Rodriguez Sanchez said. “We’re voting on a budget that includes promises without plans, plans without personnel or metrics or ways to hold our agencies accountable in their execution. If a budget is a statement of values, this budget process reflects that we don’t regard mutual respect or collaboration as a value.”
South Side Ald. Jeanette Taylor, 20th, said the budget is unfairly balanced on the backs of taxpayers.
“Don’t give me crumbs and tell me it’s cake,” she said.
Lightfoot muscled her property tax hike on Chicago homeowners through the council the same day she introduced a plan to let the Cubs, which is owned by the Ricketts family, defer a $250,000 payment to the city for infrastructure improvements near Wrigley Field on the grounds the team has lost revenue during the pandemic.
Much of the opposition to the budget came from aldermen against the property tax increase or who wanted to see more police defunding. Lightfoot also lost a chunk of votes from Northwest and Southwest Side aldermen including Marty Quinn, 13th, and Matt O’Shea, 19th, who said they were also opposed to Lightfoot’s cuts to police funding.
Lightfoot’s 2020 budget passed 39-11, and she 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.
On Tuesday, Lightfoot was more forgiving than she has been in some prior disagreements with the City Council. “I also want to thank those who did not vote for the budget,” she said. “We have to move forward together.”
It might not be so easy for her to get past her fights with aldermen, however.
After voting against her budget last year, North Side Ald. Andre Vasquez, 40th, voted for this year’s package. Vasquez noted Tuesday that while the 11 no votes last autumn were mostly progressive Black and Latino aldermen, this year much of the opposition came from white aldermen in wealthier wards where residents vehemently opposed the property tax increase.
“I want this council and this city to remember that last year, when a coalition of mostly Black and brown alders voted no on the 2020 budget, we were publicly targeted by a custom-built campaign website,” Vasquez said. “I do not expect we will see the same treatment of some of the committee chairs and other powerful, privileged white aldermen this year.”
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Two other aldermen who voted no last year, Ald. Maria Hadden, 49th, and Ald. Mike Rodriguez, 22nd, also supported this year’s budget, but not without reservations.
“This is not a people’s budget, and the process we followed is not one that faithfully incorporated the input of the people of this city,” Hadden said before her vote. “I won’t pretend this budget reflects the values that our administration and City Council claim to hold. I’m voting aye because that was the price of the non-law enforcement mental health response model being included in the pilot for this year.”
Behind the scenes, Lightfoot 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.
Lightfoot’s proposed five-year, $3.7 billion capital plan also helped her get support from trade unions in convincing aldermen. The plan passed 41-8 on Tuesday.
Many progressives remain unimpressed with Lightfoot’s budget priorities. 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.”
