No Property Tax Hikes In Brandon Johnson's First Budget Proposal

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson won't raise property taxes in his $16.6B 2024 budget proposal, a welcome relief to a business community antsy after his election. 

While the full details of the budget aren’t yet known, Crain’s Chicago Business reports the mayor will instead close a $538M budget gap by relying on eliminating city vacancies, refinancing debt and tapping into the reserves of the city’s tax increment financing districts.

“It will take time, as this is just the first of many budgets, but we are going to see, Chicago, what happens when water hits that dry land,” Johnson will tell members of the city council, according to prepared remarks provided to Crain’s. 

Johnson aims to approve the budget by Nov. 15 and will keep in place some of former Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s policies, including contributing an advance payment to the city’s pension funds, per Crain’s. However, Johnson plans to distance himself from his predecessor, too, most significantly by shooting down property tax increases to keep pace with inflation.

Johnson’s goal to close the deficit largely comes through an estimated $321M in increased revenue to the city driven by $186.8M in improved revenue projections, on top of assigning $50M from a previous year's budget surplus and $35M in collection enforcement, Crain’s reported. 

The mayor is also proposing $26.6M in new investments, which include expanding Chicago’s mental health network and homelessness shelter system, as well as re-creating the city’s environmental department, per Crain’s. 

In 2022, property taxes overall in the city rose 6.6%, according to an analysis from Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas. But contrary to previous assessments in 2020 and 2021 in the Chicago suburbs, which resulted in significant hikes in commercial assessments, residential taxes rose 8% last year to $3.83B, while commercial taxes saw a smaller increase of 5.2% to $3.82B.

On the whole, taxes rose about $468M last year, with homeowners footing about 60% of the bill, according to Axios.