Alderman Chris Taliaferro told residents gathered at Rutherford Sayre Fieldhouse for the 29th Ward meeting last week that the city’s budget deficit is “very difficult and challenging to take.”
“As many of you have already heard, we are looking at a very, very substantial deficit in the city of $1.2 billion,” Taliaferro said. “I won’t speculate on what the mayor’s proposals are, but he’s already put it out there to the public that one of the cutbacks that he’s doing is on hiring.”
At the community meeting, where issues and initiatives were discussed to strengthen local engagement, Taliaferro discussed Chicago’s budget deficit.
According to Budget Director Annette Guzman estimates, the city’s projected budget deficit for fiscal year 2024 is $222.9 million, and the forecast is no better for fiscal year 2025, when the deficit is expected to balloon to $982.4 million. The deficits are being driven by rising personnel, pension and contractual costs, officials said.
“The mayor’s budget address is expected to outline further measures to handle the budget deficit, with additional updates on the impact of the hiring freeze and potential cutbacks,” Taliaferro said.
Mayor Brandon Johnson is expected to address the city’s $1.2 billion budget deficit in his upcoming budget address, slated for the first two weeks of October.
So far, city officials have confirmed that the mayor issued an executive order to halt hiring in an attempt to manage the shortfall. The hiring freeze, however, will not apply to certain critical departments, including police, fire, and paramedic services.
“Some of the criticism Johnson received was that the hiring freeze did not account for the need for first responders,” Taliaferro said. “If we go a year or even a short period of time without hiring first responders, we’re going to have a deficit and an impact.”
“We lose on average about 30 to 40 police officers a month,” Taliaferro added. “If that goes on month after month after month, and we’re not rehiring, we lose the ability to respond adequately and in a timely manner,”
In response to these concerns, the mayor has exempted first responders, including police officers, paramedics, and firefighters, from the freeze.
It will, however, affect other city departments.
“The freeze does affect everyone else,” Taliaferro said.
Despite the freeze, some wards have managed to get key personnel onboard due to pre-existing hiring processes.
“We were fortunate to be able to get a ward superintendent because our ward suit had already been in the process when the freeze went into effect,” he added.