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Mayor Brandon Johnson gave his fiscal year (FY) 2026 budget address Thursday morning in front of the Chicago City Council.
The mayor’s budget recommendations address cuts made by the President Donald Trump administration with a focus on taxing rich corporations
“When they come for any of us, they come for all of us,” Johnsons said to applause.
Recommendations include $200 million in cost cuts that will result in savings, along with no “new property taxes or regressive fees,” according to materials provided by the city’s Office of Budget Management (OBM).
Johnson’s FY 2026 budget equates to $16.6 billion, a 3.2% decrease from last year’s budget due to losses of pandemic-era grants and pension costs, according to materials sent by the OBM.
Cost saving measures mentioned in Johnson’s FY 2026 budget recommendations include cuts to police overtime, hiring freezes for “targeted” positions, contract reductions with city vendors and reducing the motor vehicle lessor tax, which is a tax on businesses that rent out motor vehicles, from $2.75 to $0.50 per rental period.
The FY 2026 budget recommendation also establishes a new $100 million Community Safety Fund, which includes mental health support for first responders; a $5 million increase in corporate funding for the Rapid Rehousing program, funding to maintain the city’s first LGBTQ+ Affairs Director, $7 million investment into the “Childcare for All” initiative, increased investment into the Department of Law’s Affirmative Litigation division, funding to rebuild the Department of Environment and promises to increase Chicago’s affordable housing stock and more financial support for those South and West Side residents impacted by the 2023-2024 floods.
“We are making these historic investments because the Trump cuts will have real impact on the poor and working people of Chicago, and they will degrade the quality of life for all Chicagoans. And that is what we must understand more than anything else in this moment: we are all connected. We all have a shared destiny as a city. We will prosper together, or we will flounder alone,” Johnson said in his speech.
Additional items in the budget include:
- Increasing the Personal Property Lease Transaction (PPLT) tax, which taxes “cloud computing” companies such as Google.
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- An amusement tax fee on social media companies called the Social Media Amusement Tax (SMART).
Establishing a Community Safety Surcharge on the top 3% of large corporations at $21 per employee per month. The fund is said to pay for free mental health clinics, youth programs, and community violence intervention.
- Getting rid of the grocery tax.
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- Implementing a yacht tax “for boat-mooring at City harbors into alignment with historical rates and the rate of parking.”
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- An increase to the “Vacant Building Fee.”
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- A Hemp tax.
“Instead of asking our residents to sacrifice even more, we are asking large corporations and Big Tech companies that have made trillions of dollars to pitch in a little bit more. Instead of asking Woodlawn, and Englewood, and Uptown to pay more, we are asking Google, and Amazon, and Microsoft to put more skin in the game,” Johnson said. “Instead of asking seniors living on fixed income in Austin and South Shore to sacrifice, we are asking Big Business to chip in a little more.”
During his speech, Johnson named cuts made by the Trump administration, such as $800 million in federal cuts for violence intervention programs, with $30 million cut from Chicago programs specifically, the withholding of $2.1 billion in federal funds for the Red Line Extension and the stripping of $1.8 billion from Chicago Public Schools due to the Black Student Success Plan.
“We can’t respond to Trump’s cuts and the attacks on our city with speeches and press conferences; we must take concrete action. We must respond to his tax cuts for the ultra-rich with new taxes on billionaires and large corporations,” Johnson said.
Johnson added that to protect funds from “federal clawbacks and grant terminations,” funding for health care services should be moved from the federal ARPA funding stream and into the city’s corporate fund.
The recommendations align with “the people’s budget,” a platform created by a coalition of organizers called the People’s Unity Platform (PUP). The organizers have hosted various events across the city to call attention to their budget recommendations that they say are progressive and put “babies before billionaires.”
“This budget is also heavily informed by the grassroots, from the bottom up – both our community budget roundtables, where we heard directly from Chicagoans from every walk of life and from our more informal budget town halls on the South, West, and North Sides,” Johnson said. “This budget is also the product of their work – I’m talking about decades of organizing that put forth these demands and brought us to this moment.”
Freshman Ald. Walter “Red” Burnett III (27th Ward) said though there are some “good things” in the mayor’s budget recommendations, he still thinks there’s work to do regarding the corporate head tax which Johnson has referred to as the Community Safety Surcharge.
“I have a lot more questions for the budget team. I would say specifically, when I start thinking about the head taxes, how it works, and in totality, who’s going to be the most affected,” Burnett told The TRiiBE. “I know we were talking about companies that have over 100 employees, but recommending and understanding who, what businesses are affected and what institutions primarily, I think we should try to do our best to protect our institutions, and I think that’s the goal right now.”
Burnett added that he thought the social media SMART tax is brilliant.
“I know it’s going to be something that is reviewed more on a federal level, but it’s time that we started making sure these social media companies play their part in making sure that our communities are safe and are dealing with some of these mental health crisis that they started,” Burnett said
Ald. Stephanie Coleman (16th Ward) said she didn’t hear anything that she opposes but would have to do more reading to better understand the mayor’s proposal. She added that no increases to property taxes is a benefit to her constituents.
“That’s what my residents are most concerned about, especially my senior populations, which are the homeowners. They’re now retired. They’re baby boomers, so they can’t afford any additional taxes or fees right now,” Coleman said.
Asked if she thought the proposal would be enough to address cuts from the Trump administration, Coleman said no.
“Those cuts are cutting, and they’re still cutting, and with the absence of ARPA, I just know that we don’t have the dollars to supplement,” Coleman said. “I think we’ll really, really, really feel it come [2026], he hasn’t even been in office a whole year.”
Burnett shared the sentiment, adding that he wasn’t sure if the mayor’s budget proposal would be enough.
“It’s hard to say exactly where things will land, Burnett said. “Coming after our Medicaid and Medicare and SNAP, all these benefits that directly affect cities, and particularly Chicago, is really scary.”
Ald. Desmon Yancy (5th Ward), who is member of the aldermanic progressive caucus, said he liked recommendations for mental health support for police officers. He’s the son of a retired officer and he said the mayor’s budget proposal is progressive.
“There’s a lot to dig into right now. It’s an extremely progressive budget, which might have some challenges to pass Council in general, but I’m encouraged by what I’ve seen, and look forward to digging into it,” Yancy said.
Yancy said that there are some council members “that are just against this mayor,” which could lead to difficulty passing the budget.
“I think we have to look at that as a stark reality. The plan is to get to 26 votes, which is a bare minimum,” Yancy said. “I’d love to see us get somewhere in the 30s, so it shows that this is a body that’s trying to work together to solve the problems in the city. We’ll see what we get.”
Ald. Greg Mitchell (7th Ward) did not answer questions on his initial thoughts on the budget proposal, stating that “they’re just recommendations.”
Progressive City Council members Ald. Anthony Joel Quezada (35th Ward), Ald. Byron Sigcho Lopez (25th Ward) and Ald. Rossana Rodriguez Sanchez (33rd Ward) have joined organizers with PUP to show support for their budget recommendations that they say target the rich at a time when the “White House has appointed the wealthiest cabinet” in history, according to organizers.
Ahead of his address, Johnson joined grassroots organizers with PUP for a press conference. He took to the podium to applause and chants, “whose city? Our city! Whose schools? Our schools!”
“History may not repeat itself, but it certainly does rhyme, and we’re certainly walking in the rhythm drumbeat of justice. We are walking in the rhythm of those who have come before us, our ancestors that believed that a room could look like this one day,” Johnson began.
“This budget was written long before I took office. These ideas were put forward more than a decade ago by community leaders on the South and West side, by young activists, faith leaders, those who fought to stop the closing of our mental health clinics in our neighborhood schools,” Johnson said. “This budget has been the one that we have not just been fighting for but waiting for. The fight to make corporations pay their fair share”
PUP has been working to encourage Johnson and the Chicago City Council to implement what they are calling progressive options to close Chicago’s $1.15 billion budget gap. The conversation about progressive budgets is happening across the country in places like New York City, where mayoral hopeful Zohran Mamdani has gained popularity through standing up for progressive causes.
Described as “the people’s budget,” organizers are demanding taxes on rich corporations and the billionaires that operate them, instead of regressive taxes that hurt everyday Chicagoans.
Johnson thanked the generations of organizers who made sacrifices to get the city to this moment, where there’s a chance to pass a progressive budget that doesn’t rely on taxing the working-class and poor.
Others who stood behind the mayor during the presser were Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates, elected Chicago Board of Education member Jitu Brown, Cook County Commissioner Tara Stamps, and other organizers who support a progressive Chicago budget.
Chicago Board of Education member Michilla Blaise took the podium to announce that Chicago Public Schools will receive money through a $1 billion Tax Increment Finance (TIF) surplus which will fully fund the CPS budget through the school year without midyear cuts.
“This agreement is essentially Trump-proofing the CPS budget,” Blaise said, adding that the board is forming a coalition with Chicago Public Schools (CPS) leadership and others to go to Springfield to demand funding for its schools.
“We thank Mayor Johnson for his unwavering commitment to education and justice,” Blaise added.
Davis Gates also spoke. “I’m a history teacher, not an English teacher,” she began. Davis Gates referenced a time “175 years ago” when Chicago’s City Hall refused to “cooperate with fugitive slave patrols, and boasted of the Black people who fled the racist South through the help of Pullman porters who helped distribute the Chicago Defender newspaper along its train routes, which not only aided the Great Migration but also turned Chicago into a Black Metropolis.
“Chicago has been neck-deep in the project of liberation and protection for a long time,” Davis Gates said. “We have a mayor, and we have aldermen, who are stepping up to be the liberty association of today.”
Also at the presser, Cheryl Miller, with South Side Together and the Treatment not Trauma campaign, said Chicago has been robbed of mental health services for decades. She said Chicago’s mental health clinics began closing under Daley, and that’s when the mental wellness fight began.
“Then we had Rahm Emanuel; he closed 50 schools, and he closed half our clinics,” Miller said.
Miller added that Lightfoot promised to address the mental health clinics closures; she did not. But Mayor Johnson did it, Miller said.
Mayor Brandon Johnson warned Black Chicagoans about “the Elon Musks of Chicago” in a March interview with The TRiiBE. Though he didn’t name names back then, Chicago’s grassroots organizers have been hosting rallies, protests and town halls throughout the summer and fall to introduce residents to the tenants of a progressive city budget.
This is a developing story. Revisit thetriibe.com throughout the day for updates.
