Chicago City Council members stood firm Wednesday on increasing regressive fees on everyday Chicagoans in their latest alternative budget plan. As of today’s City Council meeting, 27 alders supported the update, which counters Mayor Brandon Johnson’s budget proposal centered on a corporate head tax.
The caucus of majority conservative and moderate alders’ latest effort adjusts the garbage fee increase, raising the tax to $15 instead of the originally proposed $18. The current rate is $9.50 per month.
The update also eliminates the Community Safety Fund, including $18 million in business grants anticipated to come from the fund.
Their counter plan still includes a 3% tax increase on liquor sales, freezing youth employment to maintain 2025 numbers, and small increases to violations. And there’s still no head tax in their counterproposal.
“These alders are proposing to increase garbage fees. These alders are proposing to increase health care premiums, and most importantly, these alders are cutting $6.2 million from our youth jobs program,” Nat Palmer, an organizer with the Black Youth Project 100, said during a People’s Unity Platform rally before the council meeting. “These alders are proposing the same old, same old, allowing corporations who are making record profits to still get away with not funding our communities, while these corporations expect our youth, expect our families to work for pennies.”
Johnson told reporters at a press briefing that he commends alders coming up with their own suggestions. However, he said he cannot support increased fees on everyday people, holding steady that he does not want to “balance a budget on the backs of working people.”
Johnson contends he would veto any budget proposal that includes nearly doubling garbage fees.
“We’re going to continue to have conversations. The door is always open, but the goal is to make sure that we’re passing a budget that’s balanced, but it also has to challenge our efforts to ensure that we are driving violence down in this city, and that’s ultimately what we are challenging corporations to help us do collectively,” Johnson said.
Though the counter revenue plan gained new support in Ald. Ray Lopez (15th Ward), Ald. Silvana Tabares (23rd Ward) and Ald. Marty Quinn (13th Ward), the plan seemed to have lost backing from Ald. Stephanie Coleman (16th Ward), vice chairwoman of the Aldermanic Black Caucus, and Ald. Ronnie Mosley (21st Ward), a Chicago Progressive Reform Caucus member. Both signed the previous alternative budget letter sent to the mayor.
In an interview with The TRiiBE, Mosley made clear he did not agree with everything in the counter proposal, including increased garbage fees. He also said he supports the Community Safety Surcharge, otherwise known as the corporate head tax. In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Mosley said he did not support decreases in youth employment.
In the social post, Mosley added that his concerns were around “clarity on how job-related proposals will affect working families and the employers who keep our neighborhoods strong.”
Originally proposed as a monthly $21 fee for businesses with 100 or more employees, Johnson’s latest head tax amendment is a $33 monthly fee for companies with 500 or more workers to create $82 million in revenue.
During a press conference after the council meeting, Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd Ward) said he and the other opponents would not support a head tax at any level due to the risk of businesses fleeing the city.
Ald. Nicole Lee (11th Ward) told reporters their budget proposal follows their “core principles, no borrowing for operating expenses, no shorting our pension obligations, no job-killing head tax and a commitment to real structural efficiencies that prevent long-term harm.”
In response, Ald. Jeanette Taylor (20th Ward), who sits on the council’s finance committee, criticized those who do not support a head tax. She called out their motives of being loyal to their donors.
“Billionaires just got a tax break from the federal government. How many more breaks can they choose?” Taylor told The TRiiBE. She’s referring to tax cuts corporations have received as a result of Trump’s Tax Cuts and Job Act, which provided expanded tax cuts to businesses and reportedly led to wider wealth inequity.
“And then y’all always talking about they’re gonna leave,” Taylor continued. “Chicago is a metropolis. People want to do business here, it ain’t no secret. You got the Google building across the street. That’s intentional, because they know what Chicago does. Chicago is a place where, if you can do it here, you can do it anywhere. And so it’s bullshit to say that we’re going to tax anybody other than the people who could afford it.”
Public records show that billionaire Michael Sacks, a big democratic donor known as the “Rahm Emanuel whisperer,” has made donations to a number of alders opposing the head tax. Alds Pat Dowell and Monique Scott have denied being loyal to donors and instead say they are interested in doing what’s best for the city.
City Council must pass a budget by midnight on Dec. 31 to avoid a government shutdown. The group of mainly conservative alders says they have the support of 27 alders to pass their alternative budget. If the mayor vetoes, the caucus would need 34 votes to overturn the move. Should the mayor veto, those alders would blame the shutdown on Johnson
“We are all pretty confident with the number of people that signed on today that will be able to move forward now very diligently to avoid a shutdown by the mayor and really make sure that we’re able to get a budget that protects working families,” Waguespack said.
Johnson blamed the difficulty of passing his budget with the head tax on interests that “benefit from chaos.” He said he has no interest in chaos and is committed to passing a budget before the end of the year. This fall, during rallies in favor of Johnson’s proposal, grassroots organizers have named the billionaire interests with business in Chicago: Sacks and Antonio Gracias, a high-ranking DOGE volunteer and founder/CEO of Valor Equity Partners, among others.
“I’m going to do everything that I can to avoid the chaos that, quite frankly, there’s some, there are some individuals that want chaos to occur. Because those interests benefit from chaos, and they will pit communities against one another to fulfill their political goal,” Johnson said. “Their motive is the bottom line, how they can get richer, and if it means fomenting chaos and sowing seeds of division, then that’s what they’ll do.”
The council voted Wednesday for five straight meeting days to pass a budget before Christmas. The council will gather Dec. 15 -18 and Dec. 23, starting at 10 a.m. on each day.
Here is the updated list of alders in the counter budget bloc:
Brian Hopkins (2nd)
Pat Dowell (3rd)
Desmon Yancy (5th)
Greg Mitchell (7th)
Michelle Harris (8th)
Anthony Beale (9th)
Peter Chico (10th)
Nicole Lee (11th)
Marty Quinn (13th)
Raymond Lopez (15th)
Derrick Curtis (18th)
Matt O’Shea (19th)
Silvana Tabares (23rd)
Monique Scott (24th)
Felix Cardona (31st)
Scott Waguespack (32nd)
Bill Conway (34th)
Gilbert Villegas (36th)
Emma Mitts (37th)
Nicholas Sposato (38th)
Samantha Nugent (39th)
Anthony Napolitano (41st)
Brendan Reilly (42nd)
Timmy Knudsen (43rd)
Bennett Lawson (44th)
James Gardiner (45th)
Debra Silverstein (50th)
