(The Center Square) – Taxpayers can expect to pay more than twice the stated amount for Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s recently-approved bond issue.
After much discussion, a majority of city aldermen voted Wednesday in favor of the mayor’s $830 million borrowing plan for capital projects.
Johnson said the city council’s approval of the general obligation debt was “a step forward,” but Wirepoints president Ted Dabrowski said the bond issue is complicated by a political mess.
“That’s one. Everybody’s lost faith in Brandon Johnson, and the second part is that Chicago has some of the worst finances, if not the worst finances of any city in the country, worse than Detroit’s,” Dabrowski told The Center Square.
Dabrowski said it’s a problem that none of the debt gets repaid until about 25 years from now.
“Really, we’re just paying interest. This is like having a credit card where you don’t pay any of the debt. You just let the interest keep compounding and compounding and compounding. That’s why it’s so expensive,” Dabrowski said.
The $830 million bond issue will cost taxpayers nearly $2 billion, Dabrowski said.
Payment for the borrowing plan is scheduled decades into the future. It follows three separate bond issues from previous Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s tenure.
During council debates over the debt deal earlier this week, Alderman Ray Lopez voted against Johnson’s borrowing plan and cited bond deals from 2020 for $2.35 billion, 2021 for $660 million and 2022 for $1.85 billion.
Dabrowski said Chicago has the most debt of any big city in the country, which means people will be on the hook for massive amounts of future taxes.
“Chicago Public Schools is in deep, deep trouble. The state’s in deep, deep trouble, so every Chicago household is really under pressure to pay back debt. This is why it’s a big deal not to borrow more, and Ray Lopez is right to worry about that,” Dabrowski said.
Dabrowski said higher property taxes are not the answer.
“What we should be doing instead is cutting costs in the city. We should be cutting costs at CPS, finding room for making infrastructure payments without again raising taxes. One of the big issues we’ve had is that Chicago has been raising property taxes at triple the rate of inflation. This is eating into everybody’s incomes,” Dabrowski said.
Former Chicago mayoral candidates also expressed their disapproval of the bond issue’s passage.
Paul Vallas lost to Johnson in the 2023 mayoral election.
“At a cost to taxpayers of more than $2B over the next 40 years, the approval of @ChicagosMayor’s $830M borrowing plan is reckless. However, it is a fly on an elephant’s behind in comparison to the toll on taxpayers for the approaching contract with the CTU,” Vallas posted on X. “Even if the school district’s offer to the union is accepted, taxpayers will shell out more than $3 billion in the next 4 years. This contract will be twice the cost of the 2019 record deal and like the last contract will do nothing to improve schools or expand quality school choices. As long as the mayor’s former employer and chief sponsor, the CTU, pulls the strings, Chicago’s taxpayers and city services will continue to suffer as the CTU agenda will take priority over all else.”
Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza finished fifth in the 2019 primary election for mayor.
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“SHAMEFUL: 26 Chicago City Council members voted to pass Mayor Brandon Johnson’s reckless $830M borrowing plan. The plan makes NO payments the first two years & INTEREST ONLY for 18 years after that. This boondoggle will cost $2 BILLION, mainly on backs of our kids & grandkids,” Mendoza posted on X.
The next election for Chicago mayor is scheduled in 2027.