Mayor Brandon Johnson began hedging Friday on whether his 2026 budget will see its first vote next week, following his Finance Committee chair publicly targeting his controversial head tax as a nonstarter with her.
Ald. Pat Dowell, 3rd, told reporters after weeks of budget hearings for Johnson’s $16.6 billion spending plan concluded Thursday that she advised the Johnson administration not to proceed with a vote in her committee Monday. But she stopped short of saying she would try to block a vote should the mayor proceed regardless.
“I think going on Monday is premature. I have said that to the administration,” Dowell said. “My role as the Finance chair is to give advice, and on Monday I’m going to have a meeting, and those things will either be on the agenda or they won’t. And I will call balls and strikes, and we’ll see where this goes.”
The fifth-term alderman also came out swinging against Johnson’s $21-per-employee monthly tax on corporations.
“I am not a supporter of the head tax at any level,” Dowell said when asked if the mayor’s latest proposal bumping the minimum company size up from 100 to 200 workers satisfies her.
It was a remarkable break from one of the two aldermen Johnson has handpicked to lead his budget through the City Council, and one that could set the freshman mayor up for an embarrassing defeat were he to lose Monday’s Finance Committee vote. His revenue ordinance, which contains the head tax that is now projected to raise $82 million to go into a public safety fund, must be advanced through that panel.
Johnson, for his part, shrugged off the naysayers. And he wouldn’t concede his head tax is on life support, either in Monday’s scheduled vote that would be a key test, or for the rest of the year as he tries to get the full package through the council.
“I’m for more deliberation if we’re actually debating over something, but to slow it down just for the sake of slowing it down, it just doesn’t make sense,” the mayor told reporters after a City Council meeting Friday. “No alder has put forth an alternative vision to my proposal.”
Johnson also argued that without the head tax the only alternative is “increasing taxes on working people,” which he’s drawn a red line against for 2026, after trying unsuccessfully to pass a property tax hike for this year’s budget. Increasing property taxes would be far more politically perilous now given the upcoming 2027 election.
Some aldermen have argued the city needs to show more shared sacrifice before they can justify a “yes” vote to their constituents, pointing to the Ernst and Young accounting firm’s report commissioned this year that they say the Johnson administration did not fully heed. The mayor’s team has shot back that the updates require time.
On Friday, Johnson said he was still waiting for suggestions on alternative revenue measures but said they must target the rich.
“I don’t think this is the time to push for regressive revenue,” the mayor said. “If there are some progressive revenue ideas that have not been brought before us, there’s still time.”
Dowell’s comments against the head tax also came on the heels of some council pushback to Johnson’s borrowing plans for the coming years. On Friday, he introduced ordinances requesting authorization for up to $3.8 billion in debt to pay for capital projects, legal settlements, back pay for the new firefighters contract, and refinancing for savings. Authorization for that borrowing will be voted alongside the regular budget.
A common adage in Chicago politics and beyond is to never call a vote you may lose, but Johnson’s team — under three different heads of intergovernmental affairs, the team tasked with whipping votes in council — has struggled mightily with counting their yeses and nos. The mayor has cast three tie-breakers so far, and been defeated on the floor in losses that were extremely rare under his predecessors.
However, Johnson’s rhetoric and movement lately suggest he could take his controversial budget to the brink next week, hoping aldermen will in the end support the head tax rather than defeating it and instead having to find another way to raise money on the backs of working-class Chicagoans.
During a budget town hall Wednesday night in Dowell’s ward without her present, the mayor framed how he views the path ahead for aldermen.
“The City Council has two options, y’all. They can tax the rich, or they can decimate services and tax working-class people,” Johnson told a room of progressive supporters from the Chicago Teachers Union and other organizations. “You have members of the City Council that are calling for increasing taxes on working people. … What kind of sick and demented society do we live in, where you have politicians who are more afraid of billionaires and these large corporations?”
His bullish stance despite the doubt among his legislative counterparts that he has the votes led some aldermen to surmise that he plans to get them on record voting against his head tax so he can paint them as anti-working class — and pin on them any unpopular alternative solutions to close the $1.19 billion gap next year. Johnson on Friday dodged a question on whether that was his endgame.
“I really don’t like that it looks like we’re being forced to vote on this,” Ald. Nicole Lee, 11th, said during budget hearings Thursday. “I’m nowhere near ready to do that.”
Lee added that she was not able to schedule a sit-down offered by the mayor because of how rushed the timeline felt to her. Meanwhile, Johnson has been traversing the city for a series of town halls — many of them in the wards of expected budget swing votes, such as Dowell’s — but often without the local aldermen present.
During those events, he often takes his mission to make the case for his third budget, unveiled a month ago as a bulwark against President Donald Trump, directly to the people of Chicago and implores them to lobby aldermen to vote yes and Springfield to give the city more revenue.
It appears that Johnson’s bold speech Wednesday evening on Dowell’s home turf didn’t budge her, however. The Finance chair calmly ended her Thursday evening remarks with reporters by saying that while she supports Johnson’s record $1 billion tax-increment financing surplus and hiking up the personal property lease tax to 15%, “I think they could do more” with cutting costs.
Johnson’s budget chair, Ald. Jason Ervin, was nonplussed when asked the potentially dramatic showdown next week but called upon his colleagues to work more with the mayor’s team instead of complaining. He did not say where he stands on the head tax beyond “I’m not saying yes to anything. I’m not saying no to anything.”
“I do believe that we will get to some sort of solution. Will it be on Monday? Maybe yes, maybe not,” Ervin told reporters Thursday. “Again, I continue to ask for alternatives as it relates to spending, as it relates to revenue. Crickets. … Council has the budget. Council has the budget. The mayor has presented what he’s presented.”
City Council adjourned Friday without the mayor introducing his budget ordinances, meaning that the spending package could still see tweaks before a direct introduction in the Budget and Finance committees on Monday. That’s a sign the votes still aren’t there, but Ervin kept his cards close to his chest when approached by reporters on his way out of council chambers.
“I’ve not had a conversation in that vein,” Ervin said when asked whether Johnson has informed him whether he will hold the committee vote or not. “Today is Friday. Monday is three days away. We’ll see.”
The mayor’s team has offered aldermanic budget briefings Saturday and Sunday.
Johnson’s borrowing plans — presented in part to aldermen Wednesday — asks for authorization to borrow up to $1.3 billion to fund infrastructure projects in 2026 and 2027. Of that sum, $216 million would go to aldermen to use in their wards on projects of their choosing, $230.6 million would fund upgrades to the city’s fleet of vehicles, IT and equipment, and $175 million would pay for street resurfacing. The rest would help cover bridges and viaducts, sidewalks, street lighting, and traffic signals, according to administration officials.
Aldermen already pushed back on Johnson’s last $830 million proposed infrastructure borrowing in January, taking issue with the backloaded schedule to pay down the debt and fears that the money would be diverted to Chicago Public Schools. Administration officials tweaked that borrowing to affirm no money would flow to CPS. They said Wednesday the payback schedule was not final but their intention was to keep the city’s overall debt more balanced from year to year.
The mayor’s capital improvement plans through 2029 call for $18.1 billion in spending, a mix of money from tax increment financing districts, issuing water and sewer and aviation debt, and federal money.
The mayor is asking for permission for another $500 million in general obligation debt, which includes money to help pay for the $90 million “global” settlement to resolve nearly 200 lawsuits tied to former CPD Sgt. Ronald Watts and the recently-inked contract with Firefighters Local 2. Together, the infrastructure, back pay and settlement G.O. bond would cost up to $1.8 billion.
Late Thursday, Chief Financial Officer Jill Jaworski disclosed the estimated extra interest to borrow for those settlement and contract costs instead of paying them from regular city funds would be roughly $50 million. The Local 2 backpay will accrue roughly $6 million a year on top of $166 million in principal over five years, she said, while the Watts settlement would run in the low $20 million range over the same period.
There is also a separate authorization ordinance to refinance up to $2 billion in old debt for potential savings. Johnson administration officials said they plan to ask for the votes on both as part of the broader budget package. A key uncertainty are the interest rates the city could fetch on that debt in the future, as ratings agency S&P previously warned the mayor’s budget plans could trigger a downgrade, likely pushing up interest costs.
Also as aldermen and Johnson held a Friday meeting, the council finalized a $17 million police misconduct settlement tied to a decades-old alleged wrongful conviction. The hefty sum will go to Jose Maysonet, who spent 27 years in custody for a double murder before Cook County prosecutors dropped charges against him eight years ago.
Before his 2017 release, Maysonet alleged police, including disgraced Chicago police Detective Reynaldo Guevara, beat him into confessing to the 1990 murders of two brothers on the Northwest Side and fabricated a police report claiming he admitted involvement.
Aldermen also unanimously approved $12 million in tax incremental financing spending on an Ogden Park field house in Ald. David Moore’s ward, a white whale for him for years. Johnson’s promise to support the measure was crucial to winning Moore’s support on the city’s 2025 budget last fall, the alderman said.
