CITY HALL — Aldermen unanimously rejected Mayor Brandon Johnson’s proposed $300 million property tax increase Thursday as they sought to restart budget negotiations with the city’s administration. mayor.

Now, Johnson and the City Council will have to find common ground on how to generate new revenue to close a nearly $1 billion budget deficit projected for 2025.

All 50 aldermen voted against the property tax increase at a special council meeting Thursday, overturning a proposal Johnson introduced during his budget speech just over two weeks ago.

The proposal is a reversal of a major campaign promise by Johnson not to raise property taxes at all during his first term.

The $300 million proposal would have meant property owners could expect about a 4.8 percent increase in their annual property taxes. For a home worth $400,000, that would work out to about $362 more per year, based on 2023 assessments, according to the mayor’s office.

But virtually all aldermen have since bristled at the tax hike, with some immediately opposing it while others wanted to wait to learn more about other potential revenue options before making a decision.

Last week, around 30 council members pushed for special meeting which took place on Thursday. Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd) said widespread rejection of the tax rise had entrust significant budgetary power to aldermen.

With the $300 million tax proposal almost certain to be rejected this week, Johnson’s budget team met with some aldermen this weekend to discuss potential revenue alternatives.

These include a “significantly reduced” property tax hike, an increase in trash collection fees, the use of unallocated federal dollars for pandemic aid, an increase in a tax on cloud computing and other proposals, according to the Sun Times.

The mayor attempted this week to reframe the initial property tax hike as “just a proposal” and confirmed his administration was working with the City Council on a path forward.

During a press conference on TuesdayJohnson called himself a “chief aide” and pledged to continue negotiations to pass a balanced budget for 2025 — something the city is required to do by the end of the year.

“As a public school teacher, sometimes we do things to get people’s attention, and now that we have everyone’s attention, I said from the beginning, it’s a proposal,” Johnson said. “I am a collaborative mayor. For the first time in Chicago’s history, we are seeing this type of collaborative approach, and we will continue to collaborate with the City Council.

Besides the tax hike, Johnson’s original budget proposal relies, among other maneuvers, on a combination of new revenue, excess tax-increase funding dollars, “operational efficiencies” in city services, and the elimination of more than 700 municipal jobs currently vacant.

Aldermen still disagreed on how the city should now offset the $300 million tied to the rejected property tax proposal.

Ald. Bill Conway (34th) said that after Thursday’s vote, the budget should include more efficiencies in city services as well as leveraging remaining pandemic relief funds.

“In a chamber where we don’t seem to agree on anything, seeing the mayor get reprimanded 50 to nothing was an unexpected and incredible result,” said Conway (34th). “It certainly requires the mayor’s office to come and negotiate with us to find another way to balance this budget.”

Reilly was more explicit in calling for staff reductions.

“The mayor is going to have to overcome his ideological issues regarding protecting city jobs,” the downtown alderman said. “They’re not entitlements, and when you’re looking at a billion-dollar deficit and over 70 percent of your costs are personnel, you have to think about that. And I think there is a way to balance this budget by eliminating even management positions while preserving front-line union representative workers.

Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35th) said Thursday’s vote was a reflection of the “fatigue” of Chicago’s homeowners, particularly in his rapidly gentrifying Northwest Side neighborhood.

Moving forward, Ramirez-Rosa wants to see state lawmakers work with the city to find more options to generate “progressive” revenue streams, something Johnson has also repeatedly called for. He would also like to see “waste” reduced within the Chicago Police Department, the city’s largest individual department.

“I’ve heard more aldermen this year say, ‘Let’s look at the waste in the CPD,’” Ramirez-Rosa said. “Obviously, I think we need to review what’s happening with the positions of the consent judgment. But aside from that…we really need to look at the CPD budget and see where we can make savings.

Ald. André Vasquez (40th) said that despite Thursday’s vote, he believed there would still be a smaller property tax increase included in the 2025 budget, in combination with municipal tax increases and other tax gains. ‘efficiency.

“I think it is a reality that we have to pay for services, taking into account the debt linked to the payment of pensions and what we have to do year after year, that there will be a certain level of tax land,” he said. “It definitely won’t be $300 million.”

Johnson has repeatedly said he is opposed to any layoffs or furloughs of city employees, which he reiterated during a news conference after Thursday’s meeting.

He called the unanimous vote against the $300 million property tax proposal a “healthy process” of negotiation and once again called himself “chief aide.”

“This is something my administration can handle.” I am not intimidated by the voices of individuals who are in their own right leaders of the city. So that’s a good thing for Chicago. It’s a new process. People will learn to adapt to it as we continue to move forward,” he said.

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