Mayor Brandon Johnson on Monday froze hiring and travel in all city departments — including police and fire — and eliminated overtime “not directly required for public safety operations” to begin to confront Chicago’s burgeoning budget crisis. […]
He’s got just four months to fill a $223 million gap in 2024 caused, in large part, by the Chicago Board of Education’s refusal to absorb a $175 million pension payment for non-teaching school employees. After that, Johnson faces a $982.4 million deficit in 2025.
The mayor has warned “sacrifices will be made.” Those sacrifices will include freezing hiring at a $2 billion-a-year Chicago Police Department that already is roughly 2,000 sworn officers short of the strength it had just a few years ago.
It also means no new hires at the $663.8 million-a-year Chicago Fire Department, which is so short of paramedics and ambulances, the 80 ambulances it does have are “running night and day,” according to Pat Cleary, president of Chicago Fire Fighters Union Local 2.
Q: Have you had any discussions with the City of Chicago about their budget, if they’re seeking any help or relief from the state?
Pritzker: No.
Q: No?
Pritzker: They have not approached us about any of it. I’ve read things in the newspaper by, I think, mostly by advocates, not really the city, about what they might want. But, no.
Q: Is that something your budget team is discussing on concentrating?
Pritzker: as you know, we don’t plan our next budget until you know, I introduce it in February and I don’t think there’ll be any supplemental that’ll be discussing what the city would want, that we haven’t been asked.
Q: How are you feeling about that deficit that we’re dealing with a higher increase, Governor, I’m assuming [you have] an eye on that?
Pritzker: Well, listen, we’ve faced a lot of challenges at the state level. As you know, when I came into office, we had a lot of bills to pay off. We had to balance the budget anyway. And then, you know, we’ve managed, sometimes through tough times. You may remember, mid-year we had to cut $700 million from our budget because, frankly, revenues were going off a cliff during COVID. So we’ve been in situations like this. It’s very, very difficult and challenging, but you know, it’s something you can tough your way through, and then you’ve got to plan for years to come. You know how you’re going to manage the balanced budgets going forward without, you know, raising, broadly, taxes on the people of Illinois, and we managed to do that.
Q: The mayor’s been calling your name out and that of the state saying ‘Billion dollars, if the state cared they’d come up with it.’ Do you feel like they’re trying to make you the punching bag?
Pritzker: All I know is that I think mostly they’ve been talking about education dollars, and I’m the first person to want to put dollars into education. So if we had extra money, it would go to education. But remember, Chicago is 20 percent of the population of Illinois, so when we put money into education, it’s got to go to the other 80 percent also. And so we are, we always look to do that. We’ve been increasing education spending at the state level already during my tenure, if you include higher education, to $3 billion and so if we had extra dollars, believe me, that’s the first place we would look to put it.
Q: Is that causing a rift in your relationship at all, though? I mean, he’s using your name in public spaces like this…
Pritzker: Well, I know that the press likes to talk about some rift. The mayor and I actually get along very well. And there are challenges that we both have dealing with, you know, making sure we balance our budgets. And so I know how difficult this situation is, and I certainly sympathize with it. The State of Illinois provides billions of dollars to the city of Chicago every single year, and we’re going to continue to do that, but we can’t just, you know, snap our fingers and somehow money, we don’t print money at the state level, as you know, they do at the federal level, but at the state level, we can’t do that. We just have to make sure we’re, you know, getting through these difficult times.
Please pardon all transcription errors.
* Quick video of that first question and his super-rare one-word response…
Hi, I’m Phil Nagel. As the son of a steelworker, a father and an Air Force veteran, I am nothing like that guy, Patrick Joyce, a career politician only looking out for himself. Joyce is controlled by the Chicago party bosses who gave him multiple pay hikes while we struggle. Joyce loves to raise our taxes but failed to pay his five separate times. Want to lower the cost of living? He’s not your guy. I’m Phil Nagel. Together, let’s change Springfield.
* I’m not sure how three of these folks had anything to do with Joyce’s Senate salary, but this is from the spot…
