{"id":45,"date":"2026-07-07T18:47:30","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T23:47:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/governedbyidiots.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/07\/chicago-midyear-budget-claims-131-7m-shortfall\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T18:47:30","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T23:47:30","slug":"chicago-midyear-budget-claims-131-7m-shortfall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/governedbyidiots.com\/?p=45","title":{"rendered":"Chicago midyear budget claims $131.7M shortfall\u00a0\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last January, Mayor Brandon Johnson said he was already preparing City Hall for a potentially painful round of midyear layoffs if revenue fell short, infuriating the rebel bloc that muscled an\u00a0alternative budget<\/a>\u00a0through the City Council after rejecting Johnson\u2019s corporate head tax.<\/p>\n

Now, the mayor has what he views as black-and-white proof that his dire prediction has come true\u2014without saying what he intends to do about it.<\/p>\n

The midyear budget report shows that the alternative revenues approved by renegade alderpersons over Johnson\u2019s strenuous objections have fallen $131.7 million short of projections.<\/p>\n

The sale of long-term city debt was expected to generate $89.6 million, but it has so far produced zero.<\/p>\n

The sale of city advertising has come up empty even though it was supposed to rake in $29.3 million.<\/p>\n

Johnson\u2019s decision to join forces with Bally\u2019s and continue fighting the decision to lift the Chicago ban on video gambling terminals has put the city $6.8 million further in the hole.<\/p>\n

Same goes for the anticipated $6 million expected to be generated by an augmented reality licensing program. That’s a technology that overlays virtual elements into the real world through devices like smart phones and smart glasses.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the mayor who has never stopped fighting the budget battle he lost essentially said, \u201cI told you so.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a pathway that would have avoided this. Had City Council accepted the $100 million from the top corporate earners\u2026we wouldn\u2019t be in this predicament right now. So hopefully, it\u2019s a lesson learned by certain members of City Council because these challenges won\u2019t disappear in one budget,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

“We did not need to cede to big-money interests and fall back on the tired practice of balancing budgets on the backs of working people.”<\/p>\n

The show-and-tell presentation did not answer the most important question: what the mayor intends to do to erase the $131.7 million mid-year shortfall.<\/p>\n

He would only say Tuesday that he is \u201cworking hard to avoid cutting services and layoffs\u201d and urging the City Council to avoid “reverting back to a style\u201d of budget balancing that has \u201cleft working families in absolute peril.” <\/p>\n

“Every single progressive revenue source that I put forward is over-performing,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe progressive movement is alive and well. We just have a few obstinate individuals that are more aligned with the interests of corporations that are ultimately stalling what could be a full-out revolution in this city. And the people in Chicago want it. They want it desperately.”<\/p>\n

Southwest Side Ald. Matt O\u2019Shea (19th<\/sup>) was a leading member of the renegade group that waged a budget rebellion not seen since the 1980\u2019s power struggle known as Council Wars.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Shea accused the mayor of \u201csabotaging\u201d the alternative, $16.7 billion budget to make his doomsday scenario come true.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe designed a budget that the administration had to execute. These are his own people that he put in place who failed to execute. He needs to look within. Once again, as we\u2019ve seen for the past 3.5 years, he fails and continues to fail,\u201d O\u2019Shea told the Sun-Times.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re now midyear, and he\u2019s failed to execute much of the budget that was passed. That\u2019s on him…It\u2019s another example of his failure to\u2014of his administration to execute. That\u2019s what this is\u2026He\u2019s saying `I failed to lead, so I\u2019m gonna go back to the same lines that I\u2019ve always gone with\u2019: Tax the rich and implement plans that the overwhelming majority of, not only the City Council but taxpayers don\u2019t want to see.\u201d<\/p>\n

If Johnson follows that now-familiar political script, O\u2019Shea said Chicago is headed for a pre-election repeat of the budget rebellion that saw the battle of the budget drag on until days before Christmas.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would only hope that the great collaborator wants to sit down and work with us this time unlike last time. If he doesn\u2019t, then once again, you\u2019ll see the City Council be the adults in the room,\u201d O\u2019Shea said.<\/p>\n

The 31-member group including O\u2019Shea that calls itself the \u201cBudget Accountability Coalition\u201d issued a statement saying its sole focus is to put the city on \u201cthe best financial footing possible in the wake of Johnson administration actions that have led to credit downgrades and ballooning budget deficits.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead of executing the financially sound budget that City Council passed last year, Mayor Johnson and his administration have spent six months slow-walking the implementation of new revenues and efficiencies designed to close our budget deficit and prevent this administration from creating excuses to raise taxes on businesses, jobs, and working families and skip the remainder of our advance pension payment,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n

\u201cChicagoans deserve transparency and the truth from the mayor instead of attempts to shift blame away from the failures of his administration.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last January, Mayor Brandon Johnson said he was already preparing City Hall for a potentially painful round of midyear layoffs if revenue fell short, infuriating the rebel bloc that muscled an\u00a0alternative budget\u00a0through the City Council after rejecting Johnson\u2019s corporate head tax. Now, the mayor has what he views as black-and-white proof that his dire prediction […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cnn-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/governedbyidiots.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/governedbyidiots.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/governedbyidiots.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/governedbyidiots.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/governedbyidiots.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/governedbyidiots.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/governedbyidiots.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/governedbyidiots.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/governedbyidiots.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}