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Dec 9, 2025
Mayor Brandon Johnson's administration rebuts budget proposal by aldermen
Chicago Tribune
Mayor Brandon Johnson's administration on Thursday publicly shot down the 2026 budget plan backed by a narrow City Council majority.
A detailed memo from Johnson's top finance officials, first obtained by the Tribune, generally sought to discredit the proposal floated earlier this week in a letter signed by 26 aldermen. Some ideas aren't legal while others are simply bad ideas, Johnson's team argued.
Releasing the 14-page letter is an unusual move for Johnson to take with less than a month until the end-of-year budget deadline as he struggles to convince aldermen to back his spending plan for 2026.
Johnson has for months called on aldermen opposed to his budget -- particularly his $100 million corporate head tax proposal -- to come up with their own solutions.
Now that they have, his response letter argues it is no real plan at all.
Johnson's team defended its monthly $21-per-employee head tax for companies with over 100 employees by pointing to many of the same arguments the mayor has been using to defend the plan. The $100 million it will bring in, which Johnson says will directly fund crime-fighting work like violence prevention programs, is "not a threat to prosperity, but a prerequisite," his administration said in the letter.
The authors -- Budget Director Annette Guzman, Chief Financial Officer Jill Jaworski and Comptroller Michael Belsky -- cited the 47% decrease in homicides and 43% drop in shootings this summer.
"A safer city strengthens economic activity, attracts new investment, and broadens the tax base, all of which help reduce the long-term burden on taxpayers," the letter said.
It further said that the aldermen's argument that the corporate head tax would harm economic growth and job growth "is not substantiated by any data."
Johnson's team said they will schedule meetings with aldermen and flagged places where they have already made changes to the budget, such as restoring Chicago Public Libraries' circulation budget.
The letter had little
