December 16: There is a new alternative budget proposal that was briefed Monday (December 15) afternoon. We are awaiting for formal circulation of a substitute ordinance. Here are the details shared from a briefing:

  • CHANGES IN BUDGET: $297.8 million needed: To remove the head tax (Community Safety Surcharge); narrowing boat fee; make the full advance pension payment; fund Gender-Based Violence services and Libraries; restoring the originally proposed structure for the Transportation Network Provider (TNP) Ground Transportation Tax ($39.4 million); and School based mentoring

  • Proposed Solutions:

    • $92.6 million - Selling outstanding debt to collections agencies

    • Roughly $85 million - Increasing the Personal Property Lease Transaction tax from 14% to 15% (compared to the mayoral administration’s budget)

    • $46.6 million - Additional Ernst & Young efficiencies (see “Publicly Available Reports” below)

    • $29.3 million - Increase advertising on bridge houses; light poles; and City fleet vehicles

    • $20 million - A so-called “Tax Increment Financing Surplus” reimbursement from Chicago Public Schools

    • $8.7 million - Increase plastic bag tax

    • $6 million - Increase liquor tax

  • Bond Ordinance Solutions:

    • Operating costs remain on bond ($166 million Fire contract, $283 million settlements)

    • A proposed bond cap ordinance: Taxable bond ordinance cap of $500 million (operating costs), and reducing refunding Sales Tax Securitization Corporation refinancing from $2 billion to $1 billion.

  • Alderman La Spata is working with colleagues on a restoration of full Library services and security services at Library branches with the following ordinances:

December 10: There are new ordinances introduced, pertaining to the Budget:

December 4 - 8 UPDATES - Over the last week, a group of alders submitted a letter to the administration outlining an alternative framework for the 2026 Budget. In response, the administration has provided numerous resources and Through the Chair requests to alders. The City Council Committee meetings previously scheduled for Monday, December 8, 2025, are now cancelled and the administration provided a response to alders. Since these are all budget related documents that are not deliberative draft ordinances, and they pertain to the 2026 ordinance, we are posting them here:

None of these measures have a complete set of ordinances at City Council as of this moment; only the administration’s cited revenue package has been introduced in updated format, which was previously voted down at Committee on Finance (see below). None of the alternative budget proposals have associated ordinances submitted. Ald. La Spata continues to push forward on gender-based violence services, the Chicago Public Library funding, Automated Speed Enforcement transparency, and a full pension payment.

November 25 – Last week, the administration attempted to call a vote on the 2026 budget ordinances at the Committee on Finance (CoF) and the Committee on Budget and Government Operations (CBGO), as well as a couple ordinances that had been introduced at the Friday, November 14 City Council meeting.

After several hours of deliberation and a failed motion to delay voting on the 2026 Revenue Ordinance, it was voted down 25-10 with Alderman La Spata voting in support of the ordinance. The CoF adjourned following the vote, and the CBGO meeting was cancelled. Ald. La Spata issued the following statement on his vote.

What’s Next for the Budget?

The City must pass a property tax levy by December 30, 2025 and its corresponding budget ordinances by December 31, 2025. The next City Council meeting is Wednesday, December 10, 2025 at 10:00 a.m. If budget ordinances are introduced at this City Council meeting, the Budget could pass the following week (December 15 – 19).

One of the difficulties of this calendar is that alderpersons may not be able to introduce any further budget amendments. On November 14, Ald. La Spata introduced the following budget items:

  1. O2025-0021034: State Law requires that revenue generated from Automated Speed Enforcement (ASE), i.e. speed cameras, be used for four specific purposes associated with traffic safety, and the Municipal Code already requires the City to keep these funds in separate accounts. This ordinance would strengthen that requirement and would take effect for the 2026 budget. This is an important transparency effort to show Chicagoans how ASE revenue is being used to fund improvements near parks and schools.

  2. O2025-0021037: The 2026 Budget does not include a full advance pension payment which resulted in an outlook downgrade by S & P Global. Ald. La Spata introduced this ordinance to codify the required 2026 payment, either at $185.6 million or the actuarially required amount determined by established accounting principles (whichever is higher).

  3. Ernst & Young recently issued a report to the City outlining hundreds of millions of dollars of potential efficiencies, which would improve City government regardless of whether any cuts or revenue changes are made. This report includes substantive operations analyses for the City. One proposal is to reorganize positions that are supervisory but only have 1 to 3 reporting employees; Ernst & Young proposes reorganizing supervisory positions to include between 6 to 8 reporting employees, which is more in line with industry standards. Ald. La Spata submitted an ordinance (O2025-0021038) proposing specific laws on how the City fills its workforce vacancies, and requiring quarterly reports on the number of vacancies that could be reorganized.

  4. Adjacent to budgetary practices, Ald. La Spata also introduced an ordinance (O2025-0021035) that would require all City contractors to disclose their immigration enforcement activities, and require the City to make those disclosures publicly available.

Ald. La Spata also co-sponsored an ordinance (O2025-0021091) introduced by Alds. Villegas (36) and Waguespack (32) to propose a ground delivery tax. Ald. Villegas previously circulated a memo to the City Council noting:

  • Deliveries of groceries, medicine, and ready-to-eat foods are exempted.

  • The tax is expected to collect at least $137 million annually, and potentially as much as $235 million.

The rest of City Council introduced the following:

  • Alderman Vasquez introduced an ordinance refining specific aspects of the City’s mid-year budget protocol. ·

  • Alderman Lopez introduced an order and two ordinances on investment requirements and process for the Treasurer’s Office.

Major Questions

Here are some questions and concerns Ald. La Spata is considering:

  • The 2026 Revenue Ordinance was amended to include a funding plan for Gender-Based Violence services and the Chicago Public Library. What is the status of those investments under any new revenue ordinance?

  • What should happen with vacant positions within the Corporate Fund, which have been vacant for the past 3 budgets (2024, 2025, and 2026)? Overall, vacancies cost the Corporate Fund more than $150,000,000 in 2026, and potentially more than $175,000,000; at least one third of those positions have three years of consistent vacancy levels.

  • How many more improvements from the Ernst & Young report can be incorporated into this budget? There are specific proposals related to workforce organization, fleet operations, office operations, among other efficiencies, that are worth a more detailed look.

  • How many outdated fines and fees can be inflation adjusted within the budget? The most recent proposal includes some Code amendments to adjust outdated fines and fees, but there are more that may be adjusted to bring City revenue current.

  • The new General Obligation bond ordinance included operating expenses in addition to infrastructure expenses. Infrastructure (capital) expenditures are more commonly bonded out, because infrastructure is a growth-oriented function of the City, and the bonds can legally match the expected life of the infrastructure assets (and, those bonds produce assets, in the form of infrastructure).

    • This bond as originally proposed included $283 million in settlements and judgments, including judgments that have yet to be voted on by City Council.

    • The bond as originally proposed included retro fire department payments of $166 million.

Publicly Available Ordinances

The 2026 budget process now features numerous ordinances in various stages of introduction, filing, and failure to pass:

  • Failure to pass / Deferred and Published: The 2026 Revenue Ordinance was deferred and published on November 18, 2025, after the CoF provided a “Do Not Pass” recommendation.

  • The 2026 Budget Recommendations were introduced in October and remain in Committee.

  • Introduced November 14, 2025:

  • Not introduced, but on file with the Clerk: The following legislative items are on file with the City Clerk because they were expected to be directly introduced to Committee, but following the “Do Not Pass” recommendation on the Revenue Ordinance, the CoF was adjourned and therefore the ordinances were not formally introduced.

  • Following the failure of the Revenue Ordinance, the CBGO meeting was cancelled, but these ordinances remain on file:

Publicly Available Reports