CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- The first day of City Council budget hearings suggest property taxes and layoffs will be tough sells for the Lightfoot Administration.
Several council members, like 50th Ward Alderman Debra Silverstein, have misgivings about increasing property taxes even a little right now. Alderman Ariel Reboyras stressed that for some people, it's difficult to afford even the $56 dollar annual increase that officials say would mean for a $250,000 home.
"I am just very concerned that there are so many people struggling with COVID who are out of work and we're asking them for increase in property tax when we have $9 million in reserves," Silverstein said.
City Chief Financial Order Jennie Bennett said the increase is a last resort, and the administration has done all it can to limit the increase.
"The increase, we believe, is fairly modest and obviously there are different scales for different property tax values and how much a homeowner would pay," Bennett said.
In a marathon hearing that stretched into the evening, Lightfoot’s budget team heard an earful of complaints about the expected $94 million property tax increase. Downtown Alderman Brendan Reilly was not comforted by it being described as “modest.”
"I want to do everything we possibly can to shelter homeowners and Chicago tax payers from too heavy of a burden at a time when they are struggling so mightily," Reilly said.
South Side Alderwoman Leslie Hairston points out that tax would increase with the cost of living.
"Even though it's only $56, each year it goes up — that's $56 they don't have," Hairston said.
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The other sore point with aldermen like the 10th Ward’s Susan Sadlowski Garza was 350 potential layoffs — and whether they can be avoided.
"We need to look at other forms of revenue that we have never looked at before," Sadlowski Garza said. "We are leaving a lot of money on the table."
The mayor's budget team pointed out that the layoffs are being slated for next year, in hopes that COVID-19 relief aid from Washington will be approved. That could alleviate some or all of the layoffs.
However, with the city still confronting a pandemic, council members say it’s no time to be putting people out of work.