(The Center Square) – A number of Illinois legislators are making it clear that they oppose spending more state taxpayer dollars on Chicago unless city officials improve their failing financial practices.
As Mayor Brandon Johnson visits Springfield this week, Chicago is facing a budget deficit of more than $1 billion dollars. Johnson’s chief of staff, Cristina Pacione-Zayas, said last week that the mayor’s delegation is focused on revenue.
State Sen. Seth Lewis, R-Bartlett, said Johnson has requested major funding for public transit, a proposed football stadium and other items.
“Some may refer to him as Billion-Dollar Brandon, but we are here to protect the suburbs and Downstate from giving those billions to Chicago,” Lewis said.
Speaking at a news conference Tuesday at the Illinois Capitol, Lewis said fiscal recklessness at Chicago City Hall should not become a burden of suburban Chicago families.
“They passed an $800 million spending plan by floating bonds with no principal payments. We saw that in the pension crisis. We got here in the pension crisis the same way, where we paid zero principal and borrowed the money,” Lewis said. “We’ve learned our lesson as residents in the state of Illinois that doesn’t work, yet we go back to the same tricks.”
A number of Illinois legislators are making it clear that they oppose spending more taxpayer dollars on Chicago unless city officials improve their failing financial practices.
State Sen. Chapin Rose, R-Mahomet, said unlike some of his predecessors as Chicago mayor, Johnson has rarely come to Springfield.
“This guy, where is he? And he just shows up and expects everybody downstate and in the suburbs to hand him a blank check to bail him out of his blank check he handed the [Chicago Teachers Union]? No thanks,” Rose said.
The Chicago Teachers Union recently agreed to a $1.5 billion labor contract with Chicago Public Schools. The four-year deal will raise the average CPS teacher’s salary to more than $114,000 per year and add hundreds of new staff positions.
Johnson is facing funding opposition from more than one level of government.
President Donald Trump issued an executive order Monday that could strip funding from cities that obstruct federal immigration enforcement.
Johnson was asked how the president’s latest order.
“The idea of our tax dollars, and we send billions of them to the federal government, that that would be withheld because of politics, because of someone’s political views or local ordinances, that is not only raggedy, but it is the most dangerous form of government that we’ve seen in a generation,” Johnson said.
Trump’s executive order cited federal law and stated that local jurisdictions who obstruct federal deportation efforts are engaging in a “lawless insurrection against the supremacy of Federal law and the Federal Government’s obligation to defend the territorial sovereignty of the United States.”
Greg Bishop and Bethany Blankley contributed to this story.
