Mayor Lori Lightfoot will ask Chicago aldermen to vote on her $16.4 billion 2023 budget Monday — her last chance to present a city spending plan before facing voters next February.
With election season ongoing, Lightfoot’s administration designed her budget to be as uncontroversial as possible, though it wouldn’t be a Lightfoot initiative without a few fights. As part of her budget, Lightfoot has faced criticism for pushing a measure giving the next mayor an automatic annual raise tied to inflation, though the mayor can opt out of the pay hike.
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Lightfoot also faced pushback from aldermen who are upset with her decision not to create a Department of the Environment, even though she campaigned vigorously on the idea in 2019. She has touted money in the budget for a much-smaller Office for Climate and Environmental Equity, staffed with fewer than a dozen positions.
Ahead of Monday’s vote, Lightfoot also went on the radio and blasted a member of the City Council, Southwest Side Ald. Matt O’Shea, for not backing her budget and questioned his support for law enforcement. For his part, O’Shea bristled at the notion that he doesn’t support police and fired back that her spending plan doesn’t do enough to keep cops from retiring at exorbitant rates.
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Still, this budget season’s negotiations are notably muted compared to those of previous years, when some of Lightfoot’s most contentious fights with aldermen broke out. In 2020, she told the Black Caucus, “don’t come to me for s—-” if they didn’t support her budget. This year, Lightfoot has taken a less openly combative tone and even backed off a property tax increase she initially proposed. Her administration announced this year’s revenue will come in at $134 million above what’s expected, negating the need for the property tax hike — although political convention urging politicians to avoid higher taxes during election years likely also played a factor.
Another provision of Lightfoot’s budget that faced scrutiny from aldermen was the move to lower the maximum combined fines for vehicles blocking bike lanes or containing tinted windows or obscured license plates from $500 to $250. A representative from the city’s Law Department explained that an Illinois appellate court decision from earlier this year mandated the lower cap, and only an amendment to the state statute by the General Assembly can change that.
Aldermen criticized the Lightfoot administration for not addressing the problem, which they said will hurt public safety and the city’s finances.
Outgoing Ald. Leslie Hairston, 5th, blamed the mayor’s office for not utilizing lobbyists in Springfield, leaving City Council blindsided.
“There is a total breakdown of communication,” Hairston said. “We’re sitting here in the dark about everything. Our representatives have not communicated with us.”
On policing, the mayor’s budget plan attempts to reflect her ethos that a strong police department coupled with street outreach and other holistic programming is the solution to solving the city’s persistent gun violence. Shootings and homicides are down so far this year from a worst-in-decades 2021, but they are still higher than they were before Lightfoot took office.
One of the more striking goals of Lightfoot’s budget is to spend $242 million in additional contributions to all four of the city’s pension funds, which the mayor likened to ending the practice of paying only the monthly minimum on a credit card. That would shave $2 billion off future contributions, provided current market performance holds, officials said
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Overall, pension payments would cost $2.7 billion in the 2023 budget, up from $2.3 billion last year. Lightfoot has said better financial planning and cash flow management has led to the city increasing its annual pension contributions by $1 billion over three years and reducing its outstanding debt by $377 million.
