Mayor Brandon Johnson campaigned on a promise to deliver Chicago from violent crime by making $1 billion worth of “investments in people” bankrolled by $800 million in new or increased taxes that level the playing field between the haves and have-nots.

His supporters will have to settle for a down payment on the spending front. And they’ll need to wait a while for the tax burden to be shifted to businesses and wealthy Chicagoans.

The $16.6 billion 2024 city budget Johnson presented to the City Council Wednesday will only “begin the critical investments necessary” to deliver on Johnson’s campaign slogan to “build a better, stronger Chicago.”

There’s funding to open just two of the city’s six shuttered mental health clinics — and those will be in existing Health Department facilities to keep costs down.

A pilot program that frees Chicago police officers from responsibility to respond to mental health emergencies will be expanded, though not enough to provide the citywide alternative Johnson promised.

Young people will get 4,000 more “employment opportunities,” bringing the grand total to 28,000 summer jobs. That’s still 4,000 fewer than in 2019 and far short of Johnson’s own promise to double the number of summer jobs for young people and make those employment opportunities year-round.

The bottom line, as Johnson was the first to admit, is that it will take time to “right this ship.”

“This budget is the peoples’ budget. … What I present here today is just our first step…The 2024 budget is a down payment on this administration’s priorities to empower people—especially young people — through economic and employment opportunities,” Johnson planned to tell the City Council, according to his prepared remarks.

“This is how we begin to make transformative change in the lives of our young people—change that we will build upon with future budgets…All of our investments—in youth, education, housing, mental health and environmental justice — layered together and continued over the years — will fulfill the promise of a better, stronger, safer Chicago.”

Holding the line on property taxes, no increase in hotel room tax

On the tax front, Johnson’s supporters will also need to be patient.

He’s delivering on his campaign promise to hold the line on property taxes and getting rid of Lori Lightfoot’s automatic escalator that would have increased property taxes to match the rate of inflation.

But he’s not proposing any increases in home rule taxes.

Working class Chicagoans must wait for Johnson to try and level the playing field that, the mayor claims is so tilted in favor of the rich and powerful, Chicago families earning $25,000 had a “total tax burden” 33% higher than a family with a $150,000 income.

“We must do better. That is why this budget holds the line on property taxes, fines and fees and why we will be working with all stakeholders to create revenue that weans us from our addiction to the regressive taxation pushing so many of our working families out of the city,” Johnson said, apparently referring to taxes on services and financial transactions, just to name a few, that can only be approved by the Il. General Assembly.

Senior mayoral adviser Jason Lee was asked why Johnson chose not to raise the city’s 4.5% tax on hotel rooms or impose a tax on digital advertising as recommended by the Action Center on Race & the Economy and the Peoples’ Unity Platform just days after the new mayor took office.

“We’re in the process of doing the real estate transfer [tax increases] to create a permanent source of funding for the unhoused. That’s cycling through the Council as we speak. That’s a major addition,” Lee told the Sun-Times.

“As far as this specific budget, we have to have a more fulsome conversation with our partners in Springfield and our partners in the Council on that piece. We just established a revenue committee in City Council. We’re gonna have a number of conversations....about revenue. The business community actually wants to participate. They have some ideas. We’re actually in a good place. ... The mayor kind of laying that out ... has compelled many people to realize he was right. We do need sustainable revenue and they need to participate with ideas.”

Johnson managing shortfall with short-term fixes

With a $538 million shortfall that’s growing with every arriving busload of migrants, Johnson was hard-pressed to deliver on any of his campaign promises.

The burgeoning migrant crisis that has seen more than 18,000 asylum seekers descend on Chicago is expected to cost the city $363 million by Dec. 31.

But Johnson managed to erase the shortfall, maintain Chicago’s status as a “sanctuary city” and still deliver for his progressive supporters — even as federal COVID relief funds were drying up — by relying on the same one-time revenues his predecessors have used for years to postpone the day of reckoning.

He declared a tax-increment-financing surplus that’s the highest Chicago has had in fifteen years. By closing out five TIF’s, he’s generating $49.5 million for the city and more than twice that amount for the Chicago Public Schools.

The city will once again re-fund city bonds, this time to generate $89.2 million and carry over $50 million from last year’s unspent balance.

The category of “personnel savings” will generate $41.5 million. That presumably means closing out vacant positions, but Budget Director Annette Guzman refused to say where those jobs would be eliminated or whether any of them are among the 1,700 police vacancies.

The Johnson administration is relying on “improved revenue projections” to generate $186.8 million and stronger “revenue enforcement collections” to add $35 million.

The $16.6 billion spending plan represents a $200 million increase over the budget that served as former Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s failed re-election platform. Even as federal stimulus funding dries up, Johnson’s plan includes 311 new position and an overall city workforce of 36,729, the highest the city has seen in years.

How Johnson plans to deliver on campaign promises

During a virtual briefing with reporters on the eve of the mayor’s address, Guzman outlined $26.6 million worth of “new investments” that will serve as a downpayment on Johnson’s formidable campaign promises, including:

• “Re-imagining public safety” by adding 398 civilian positions at the Chicago Police Department; creating 440 “promotional opportunities” for detectives; increasing the number of field training officers to oversee and mentor patrol officers; investing in training and vehicles for the Bureau of Detectives to assisting in reducing the backlog of cases; returning 70 patrol officers currently assigned to the Office of Public Safety Administration to street duty; and adding “data analytic support” to better evaluate police and fire response times.
• Creating a stand-alone Department of Environment with an annual budget of $900,000.
• Bolstering funding by roughly $2.5 million for the Bureaus of Forestry and Rodent Control within the Department of Streets and Sanitation.
• Supporting the 18,000 asylum seekers by creating an Office of New Arrivals within the Department of Family and Support Services. adding staff at the Office of Emergency Management and Communications and bolstering funding for homeless shelters and “wrap-around services by $6.8 million.
• Creating a Department of Innovation and Technology by removing those all-important functions from the Department of Assets, Information and Services.  That means that the Department of Fleet and Facilities Management will stand alone again.
• A $600,000 increase for the Office of Labor Standards to better enforce an array of workforce protections already approved by the City Council or in the works.

Will Johnson cut CPD funding?

Still murky is whether or not Johnson is honoring his campaign promise not to cut even one dollar from the Chicago Police Department’s $1.94 billion budget.

A top mayoral aide, who asked to remain anonymous, never answered the question directly.

“We’ve been challenged with recruitment over the last several years. We’re just being realistic with the police budget on what we can and cannot do,” the mayoral aide said.

“We’ve made adjustments to help with the consent decree. We’re shifting resources into civilian jobs. Promotional opportunities create opportunities for people to be promoted from within” without saying whether sworn officers promoted to detective or other ranks would be replaced.

Will Johnson’s progressive supporters grow restless?

Although the first budget only makes a down payment on Johnson’s lofty campaign promises, Lee said he isn’t concerned that the mayor’s progressive supporters will grow impatient with their political champion.

After waiting forever to elect the most progressive mayor in Chicago history, Lee firmly believes Johnson’s liberal base will be realistic about the political power of the possible.

“People always want as much as they can get. That’s human nature. But I think most people are patient. They know that we didn’t get here in a year. We got here over a matter of decades with some of the challenges this mayor was elected to address,” Lee said.

“When you’re trying to pivot a big ship like the city of Chicago, you have to begin to turn in the right direction before you just zoom full speed ahead.”