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Mayor, CPZ lay out Chicago’s top 5 state legislative priorities (Updated)

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* Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson was asked about his top three priorities in Springfield this spring session during a press availability today…

Mayor Johnson: I think we have five. So yes, we have a number of people in Springfield that are carrying the agenda on behalf of the City of Chicago. Again the loudest voice for our team in Springfield is me. I had a conversation with the Senate President yesterday. Senate President Don Harmon is my mentor, he gave me my first job, and I was his director of constituent services making 10 bucks an hour. And now I call him Senate President, he calls me Mr. Mayor. Had a few conversations with Speaker Welch. On rotation, our budget director and our CFO have had regular conversations with Springfield. My Chief of Staff [Cristina Pacione-Zayas], she understands that place better than any other chief of staff in the history of Chicago because she’s been there. And her relationships, of course, are tried and true. And so those top priorities CPZ, if you don’t mind just running through them, there’s a number of them.

CPZ: A lot of them focused on revenue, so there’s the Personal Property Replacement Tax.

There’s also the Telecom fix that we were working on last session, as well as the 911 surcharge extending that. The sunset was set for this year, we’re extending it a little bit further.

We have mandated categoricals in the Illinois State Board of Education Funding. This would be something that wouldn’t just benefit Chicago Public Schools, but it would benefit the entire plethora of school districts. The 852 because, as you know, with mandated categoricals there are certain services such as transportation and special education and bilingual education that school districts are required to provide but the state does not reimburse at the fullest amount. And so right now there’s some discussion about increasing the proration so that we can get closer to 100% reimbursement, which would then mean that all school districts would get more money into their budgets to take care of the services that they’re required to give.

And then the last, is the One System Initiative. This is the partnership with the state in terms of what we took with our legacy homelessness system and the emergency temporary system that we put up because of the humanitarian crisis we built the infrastructure for something that would live beyond that crisis. But ultimately be able to expand our beds to 126 percent increase up to 6,800 beds have a 24 hour access point. So now we have nobody on a wait list if they need shelter.

So those are the five top priorities. Of course, we know that transit is huge and there’s a lot to be discussed there, with respect to the RTA and the various proposals that are put out by some of our colleagues in the labor space, as well as the advocates.

* H/T Chicago Bars. More on the Personal Property Replacement Tax…

The law requires the Illinois Department of Revenue (IDOR) to collect these taxes and allocate 51.65% to local governments in Cook County and 48.35% to local governments in the other 101 counties. The allocation for each local government was to be based on their share of the total personal property tax collected in 1976 for Cook County and 1977 for everywhere else.

In State Fiscal Year (SFY) 2024, IDOR distributed an estimated $2.99 billion in PPRT to 6,525 local governments throughout Illinois. One-fifth of those distributions went to municipalities.

Prior to SFY 2009, IDOR could only divert PPRT revenues for the purpose of paying costs for administering and distributing the revenues of the tax. As illustrated below, past General Assemblies and Governors have increasingly diverted PPRT revenues to pay state’s attorneys, stipends to county officials, regional offices of education and others. In the past, these costs were paid for by state general revenue sources. In SFY 2025, total diversions from PPRT are more than $370 million.

…Adding… Maurice Scholten of the Taxpayers’ Federation of Illinois…

To ensure revenues are distributed correctly, the Illinois Department of Revenue (IDOR) reconciles an annual distribution of income tax payments after processing income tax returns. It was discovered through this reconciliation process that PPRT disbursement to local governments were worth more than they should have been in SFY2022 and SFY2023.

IDOR offset $818 million from PPRT disbursements to local governments in SFY2024 to “true up” these distributions, and another $1.021 billion in SFY2025. The SFY2026 offsets should be an estimated $510 million, which means more PPRT money should be disbursed to local governments. Since the City of Chicago gets 11.6% of PPRT, they should receive roughly $59 million in additional revenues just from the “true up.” Since Chicago Public Schools receive 21% more from PPRT than the City of Chicago, they should also experience increased PPRT revenues, as will every local government unit. The PPRT “true up” should be completed by SFY2027.

Thoughts?

posted by Isabel Miller
Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 11:28 am

Comments

So, is transit a top priority? Mentioning it as an afterthought seems like it is not.

Comment by Incandenza Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 11:42 am
Doesn’t look like a transit solution this spring. They’ll find a way to punt it to Veto. That’s exactly what they did in 2007, the doomsdays happened throughout the summer/fall, and then a solution came in late 2007 and became law early 2008.

The real reason is CTU will be livid if transit gets more cash and they don’t.

Comment by Just Me 2 Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 11:54 am
As I go down the City of Chicago PPRT rabbit hole…looks like IDOR is predicting City of Chicago will get $233,110,808.00 in PPRT in FY2025 but actually received $345,976,438.74 in PPRT share for FY2024?

Yeah, I bet a $110M drop (if I’m reading that IDOR spreadsheet correctly) gets a top 5 City Hall priority.

From IDOR spreadsheet here: https://tax.illinois.gov/localgovernments/replacementtaxestimate/replacement25.html

Comment by ChicagoBars Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 11:57 am
===- Anonymous - Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 11:55 am:===

Could you at least confine your bigotry to posts directly related to the group of people you hate instead of spreading your bigotry to other posts because you some how think the civil rights and civil liberties of others are distracting from how important you are?

Comment by Candy Dogood Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 12:00 pm
“Mentioning it as an afterthought seems like it is not.”

I think statements like this confirm it is an afterthought. Charitably, it looks like they’re hedging about the merger vs labor proposal

Comment by Politically_Illinois Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 12:02 pm
I guess the cell phone tax and the 911 surcharge are two separate priorities. Otherwise, I count four priorities in the Top 5 priorities (PPRT, telecom taxes, “mandated categoricals,” and One System funding increase.” No transit, reform or otherwise, in the Top 5.

Comment by Three Dimensional Checkers Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 12:09 pm
“understands that place better than any other chief of staff in the history of Chicago”

Everything with the mayor is about how they do things better than any other administration…interesting that the approval numbers are so low.

Transit reform will just have to happen without the City’s input, I suppose.

Comment by NIU Grad Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 12:44 pm
I really want the mayor to do well. Unfortunately it feels like he’s doubling down on a lot of the mistakes he’s made in the past two years.

Comment by Peace Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 1:02 pm
I predict 1,400 new speed cameras by July.

Comment by Michelle Flaherty Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 1:08 pm
The mayor of the 3rd largest city in the nation making solving a catastrophic fiscal cliff for one of the oldest and most extensive transit agencies in the US an afterthought is… a choice.

Comment by Incandenza Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 1:10 pm
I want to hear some creative new ideas for transit reform, like
a cap on all staff salaries of $100,000

Comment by Here Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 1:34 pm
==she understands that place better than any other chief of staff in the history of Chicago because she’s been there==

That honor should probably go to Gery Chico, Daley’s chief of staff who was chairman of the ISBE and collaborated with Springfield for deacdes in various roles in Chicago.

Comment by City Zen Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 1:44 pm
===That honor should probably go to Gery Chico===

Or Tim Degnan.

Comment by 47th Ward Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 1:52 pm
It amazes me that we still distribute PPRT based on how much personal property tax revenue was collected by each taxing body from 50 years ago when the replacement (income tax) has grown leaps and bounds more than property taxes would have and there have been gigantic shifts in populations and needs over that timeframe.

Comment by Juice Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 2:33 pm
===Or Tim Degnan.===

Or Eileen Mitchell.

Comment by Juice Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 2:35 pm
=Yeah, I bet a $110M drop (if I’m reading that IDOR spreadsheet correctly) gets a top 5 City Hall priority.=

CPPRT has been decreasing for the last two or three years. All entities that receive CPPRT knew it was happening. The numbers are released in advance every year ad the city probably knew before the rest of us with direct contact from the state.

CPPRT jumped massively and unexpectedly during COVID. It has simply returned to normal levels. Also, adjustments can occur based on corporate tax appeals and actual collections. WHich is what happened 2 years ago.

Comment by JS Mill Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 3:09 pm
No mention of the Deputy Mayor for Government Affairs - who came to the role with no experience lobbying for governments in Springfield. No wonder why the COS has to carry that water.

Comment by More on That Later Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 3:35 pm
Every time I think Brand Jo can’t get it any worse - he does. No focus on transit. No thought process on how the city will be involved in that. Though Just Me 2 is right in that Stacy and CTU will not be happy if transit got more money than them. Perhaps the approach could be whichever unit produces greater improvement in results receives a larger piece of the pie?

Comment by Just a guy Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 4:16 pm
After reading the Maurice S update to the post I find myself yet again forlornly wishing State & City of Chicago were on same fiscal year even though I know that will never happen.

Comment by ChicagoBars Tuesday, Apr 1, 25 @ 4:42 pm