Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s ‘pandemic budget’ for 2021 cleared the Chicago City Council. Here are 5 things to know.

Chicago Tribune - 11/24/2020

Chicago aldermen on Tuesday narrowly approved Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s$12.8 billion “pandemic budget” for 2021, a package that will fund city government through the next fiscal year while closing a projected $1.2 billion budget deficit spurred by coronavirus pandemic-driven revenue losses to municipal coffers.

Among other things, the package includes a $94 million property tax hike, as well as increases in fees and fines. Aldermen voted 28-22 in support of Lightfoot’s property tax increase and 29-21 to pass her budget.

Here are five things to know:

What’s in the budget?

In a $12.8 billion budget? A lot. Among the new spending is a $65 million appropriation for affordable housing and homeless prevention programs. Lightfoot said there’s also $36 million for violence prevention efforts and $20 million for a community based mental health program and $1 million for an alternative response pilot program that would pair police with mental health professionals when answering certain 911 calls.

“We have not abandoned our values and we never will as long as I am mayor. We will continue to lean into our north stars of equity and inclusion,” Lightfoot said after the City Council approved her budget. “This budget does just that, even in this extraordinarily difficult year.”

Capital Plan

The budget also gives approval for the mayor to begin her proposed multiyear Capital Plan. Earlier this month, Lightfoot introduced plans to spend $3.7 billion over five years on infrastructure projects across Chicago. Under her plan, the city would borrow $1.4 billion to fund construction projects throughout the city over the next two years before borrowing more later.

Among other things, city officials said the package would balance more conventional, necessary maintenance work on bridges and other key infrastructure with complete street projects aimed at making roads more accessible for bikers and pedestrians. It also will address other infrastructure needs, according to a news release, that include “the repair and replacement of bridges, shoreline revetment Americans with Disabilities Act accessible sidewalks, street resurfacing, streetlights and traffic signals.”

New taxes

A key component to Lightfoot’s budget plan was a $94 million property tax increase. The city estimates that hike will translate to an extra $56 for a Chicago homeowner with a median home value of $250,000. Chicago property taxes will then increase each year based on the Consumer Price Index, under the budget passed Tuesday. The budget also calls for a 3-cent per gallon hike in the motor fuel tax and will raise a city tax on cloud-based computer leases.

Will there be layoffs of city workers?

When Lightfoot first proposed her budget, it called for laying off about 350 city employees and the elimination of more than 1,900 vacant positions. But earlier this month, the mayor and the Chicago Federation of Labor announced jointly that they had reached an agreement to scrap that plan -- thanks largely to an influx of marijuana tax revenue.

Although the layoffs were a high-profile part of her plan, the job cuts would have amounted to roughly $13 million, which is a small part of a $12.8 billion budget.

“After many productive conversations, we have come to an agreement to avert any layoffs of city workers in the 2021 budget,” Lightfoot and Chicago Federation of Labor President Bob Reiter said in a joint statement this month. “This will ensure Chicago’s public workers, the backbone of our neighborhoods, maintain their jobs and health insurance while also protecting the critical services Chicagoans rely on during these unprecedented times.”

Most nonunion city employees, however, will be required to take five unpaid furlough days next year.

New fines and fees?

Motorists caught by automated speed cameras driving as little as 6 miles per hour over the posted limit could get ticketed in the mail, under the budget. Lightfoot’s administration expects to raise an additional $38 million next year from additional fines, forfeitures and penalties, a total that includes the speed camera tickets.

As part of the city’s new budget, anyone caught by a camera driving from 6 to 9 mph above the limit would get a warning. Getting caught on camera a second time would prompt a $35 ticket in the mail.

Currently, only those caught driving 10 mph above the limit get the $35 tickets. Tickets of $100 are issued to drivers caught speeding by 11 mph or more above the posted limit. The city has had the authority to issue the tickets at lower speeds, but has never used it.

City officials have said they also are planning to boost revenue by ticketing more for “safety-related issues” such as cars double parking and blocking loading zones, along with better collection of outstanding fines.

Lightfoot’s plan also counts on adding hundreds of parking meters to spaces around the city. While a private company controls the meters through a much-reviled 75-year lease, city officials have said the new meters will help reduce by about $2 million the annual “true-up” payment the city must make to the company each year for the cost of spaces taken out of commission for things such as roadwork and street festivals.

The city issued more than 35,000 parking tickets during a period this year when Lightfoot told the public they’d be getting a break on ticket enforcement because of the COVID-19 outbreak, the Tribune has reported.

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