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Chicago City Council holds emergency meeting on budget report
Members of the Chicago City Council held an emergency meeting on a report detailing how to close a $1.1 billion budget deficit.
CHICAGO - Members of the Chicago City Council held an emergency meeting on Monday in which they grilled members of Mayor Brandon Johnson’s budget team about a report outlining ways to close a more than $1 billion budget deficit.
What we know:
The city paid an outside accounting firm, Ernst & Young (EY), $3 million to make recommendations on how to save money in the city’s massive $16.7 billion budget. The firm’s report came up with as much as $1.4 billion in savings.
Several alders wanted to know why the mayor isn't incorporating the majority of the recommendations into his 2026 budget plan, which attempts to close the $1.1 billion gap.
On Monday, Johnson said, the report was just one of many considerations that he had to take in.
"I just hope that they spend the same amount of time in this EY report, also looking at how corporate interests are continuing to get away without having to pay their fair share in taxes," Johnson said. "I think all of it requires our attention at this time."
The Ernst & Young report recommends things like consolidating city real estate and some of the fleet of city vehicles, consolidating the way the city doles out contracts, and then saving $100 million by having city employees pay more toward their health coverage.
But alders have complained that only about $80 million worth of these ideas and recommendations were included in the mayor's budget proposal, along with a proposed employee head tax, a social media tax, and other revenue generators.
RELATED: How Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson plans to close a $1B budget deficit in 2026
What they're saying:
Council members like Ald. Matt O'Shea (19th Ward) said it didn’t sound like the majority of alders want to go along with the new taxes.
"We've been very clear we want to see more cuts. We want to see more efficiencies," O’Shea said. "We know we can't cut our way out of this, but before we talk about higher taxes, higher fees, we need to identify cuts and efficiencies, and this current proposal, the mayor's put forth, doesn't include enough."
Johnson’s budget director defended why the administration didn’t include more recommendations. She argued they included long-term solutions and the city couldn’t see all the savings in a one-year budget cycle.
But several aldermen were not buying it and demanded more answers.
What's next:
The City Council has until the end of the year to approve a final 2026 budget.