* Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson was asked if his budget requests have shifted during a press availability today…

Reporter: So we know that there are lots of questions about what could happen in Washington and how that funding could affect what comes to Illinois. Governor Pritzker presented a very austere budget. Does that mean the city is now adjusting what its requests are for the legislature? And can you offer a little bit of how you might be adjusting what you’ll be asking?

Mayor Johnson: As I said before, what the state of Illinois is dealing with, the state of Maryland, states across the country, cities across the country, are dealing with these deficits. And these are heavy lifts in this moment, and I do want to acknowledge that. And look, we fought hard to secure $426 million from the federal government to respond to the to the victims of flooding back in 2023. So we’re moving full speed ahead to repair the damage in those homes, as well as make sure that individuals who are repairing that damage reflect the neighborhood where the damage occurred.

So there is some uncertainty. If I get this right, I believe [Christina Pacione-Zayas] said that about 80% of the funding for CDPH is through grants, 85% federal grants, right? So there are some real challenges, make no mistake about that. And this is why local governments, as well as state government, will have to show up in a stronger way. Now, in the city’s budget, we did have cuts across the board. I’m not going to look back at our commissioners, because I know I’m going to trigger them in a second, but they worked hard to find the 3% — It was only 3% right? — Okay, all right. They said only sure mayor, only.

They found those efficiencies, and that wasn’t that wasn’t easy, and they found them. But we didn’t have to lay people off. We didn’t have to cut services.

In terms of our request. Look, our state and its vibrancy is certainly connected to the vibrancy of the city of Chicago. Everybody’s in agreement with that. Our requests are not that much different than any other municipalities across this the state. We still need more support for special education, for bilingual education, transportation within our public schools.

So those requests, we’re still holding strong to those. Our Chief Operations Officer, part of his portfolio, and the 20 plus years of service that he is lended to the city and the county, he has been a part of every single department in the city of Chicago [during] course of his time, and we’re looking very closely at Chicago Transit Authority and how we can have more equitable funding.

Help me out here. [Chief Operating Officer John Robinson], I believe, CTA we attribute for what percentage of the overall transportation input into the state?

Robertson: Over 80 percent.

Johnson: Over 80 percent. But do we get what back? About 40 percent, right? So that’s an unequitable distribution, in terms of our output. And so we want balance and equitable structures that complement who we are as a city.

And then, as I mentioned before, progressive revenue is one that we are still paying attention to. But there are mayors across the state we’re all in agreement that the LGDF structure is woefully underwhelming, right? So we want to see some progress there. And you know, we’ll continue to push the General Assembly to help support local municipalities. And then, of course, as I said before, the personal property replacement tax and the telecom tax just some areas of cleanup that we need to do to ensure that there’s revenue available for our cities.

The last thing that I’ll say to this is working people in the city of Chicago elected a working class man to fight for working class people. And that doesn’t change, because the circumstances are in flux. We have to remain committed to our overall agenda to repopulate Chicago with working people. Right now we can conservatively get 400,000 more people in Chicago. Aren’t we looking forward to 400,000 more people in the city of Chicago? We are! And that’s going to help increase our tax base. It’s going to put more people in homes. It’s going to make sure that our schools are vibrant, with young, smiling, diverse faces across the globe. So in other words, my commitment to working people has not changed. We’re going to push to ensure that investments in our city reflect the output of our city.