Leaders of the City Council opposition against Mayor Brandon Johnson are forcing a special meeting to try to wrest control over how the $75 million payment from renegotiating the parking meter deal is spent.
Alds. Pat Dowell, 3rd, Scott Waguespack, 32nd, and Nicole Lee, 11th, filed the paperwork Tuesday in order to meet next Monday to consider requiring the transfer fee from Stonepeak Partners be spent on an extra payment to Chicago’s underfunded public pensions for 2026. That would leave a $75 million hole in Johnson’s 2027 budget, because he hoped to direct that money to be part of next year’s $363 million advance pension payment, rather than on top of it.
In an unrelated news conference at City Hall Tuesday, Johnson shrugged off that possibility as another fiscal problem aldermen would create for themselves, saying “they have prerogative to do that.”
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“If the City Council decides to use their authority to put an additional $75 million on top of the supplemental payment, of course, again, that is their prerogative,” the mayor told reporters. “In terms of what they will do to find another $75 million, look, we’re talking to alders every single day. What we saw last year was obviously incomplete. We do not want to go down that road again.”
The aldermen behind the special meeting disagreed on their assignment.
Finance Committee chair Dowell said aldermen clearly intended for the sum to go toward a “supplemental payment 2.0.”
“And now the council is going to take action,” she said. “I believe that it’s on the administration to craft a budget.”
Dowell also took issue with what she said was Johnson not discussing with aldermen his plan to use the $75 million toward the pre-planned supplemental pension payment before his budget introduction. Waguespack and Lee echoed those frustrations, claiming they had briefed the mayor on their intentions with the Stonepeak payment that the New York investment firm delivered as a concession.
“He sat from here to there, and we were very clear about it,” Waguespack said, extending his arm to demonstrate the distance. “This is a very strong message that he needs to do what the will of the council is on that $75 million.”
Johnson in a media briefing last week disputed that aldermen kept him apprised, saying reporters relaying those demands “apparently” had conversations “with individuals that have an expectation that (they) have not had with me.” Regardless, Lee and Waguespack said the Johnson administration was essentially trying to use a one-time funding source to free up Corporate Fund money for other spending needs rather than fulfill the advance pension obligation.
On what they’d cut in order to fill that $75 million, Waguespack said, “That’s up to the mayor.” Lee concurred but pointed out the Stonepeak transfer ordinance laid out that the $75 million should be used for pensions, although the language does not give further details, such as a deadline.
“It was always the intention of the team that negotiated,” Lee said. “If you have the opportunity to pay down your balance, that’s what you do.”
The latest hole in Johnson’s proposed budget comes as his $17.6 billion spending proposal for 2027 has faced pushback over a revamped corporate head tax as well as hiking the levy for leased property to 20%. Those two revenues would add $102 million and $234 million, respectively, to plugging the $882.4 million gap in next year’s budget.
Last week Johnson unveiled the “Fair Share” budget, including $132 million in new spending, as an existential fight for the city’s poor. But most aldermen have ranged from cautious to hostile to the proposal.
The head tax, which was voted down a year ago, again appears to be on political life support despite the $25-per-worker monthly fee for companies with over 125 employees coming with a full rebate if the jobs are located within designated struggling areas mostly on the South, Southwest and West sides.
The mayor’s own chief financial officer, Ashlee Gabrysch, said during the first day of budget briefings Monday that despite Johnson’s claim the budget is 76% structural, she puts the number at 56%. It was a revelation that further emboldened Johnson’s foes to say he needs to seriously revise his proposal.
“Look, we were obviously incredibly transparent,” Johnson said when asked about the discrepancy. His ratio removed $220 million in costs for the global police misconduct settlement and others from the city’s corporate fund deficit entirely, cutting the budget hole from $882 to $662 million. “Once we decided to finance the global settlement, then that obviously reduced the budget deficit.”
The Tribune’s Jake Sheridan contributed reporting