Mayor Brandon Johnson on Monday froze hiring and travel in all city departments — including police and fire — and eliminated overtime “not directly required for public safety operations” to begin to confront Chicago’s burgeoning budget crisis. Johnson is not the first mayor to freeze hiring and restrict overtime to solve a budget crisis. But most past hiring freezes have been confined to “non-essential” positions.
Public safety jobs in the Chicago Police Department and the Chicago Fire Department have routinely been exempt. Johnson doesn’t have that luxury at a time when he’s refusing to rule out the property tax increase he campaigned against. He’s got just four months to fill a $223 million gap in 2024 caused, in large part, by the Chicago Board of Education’s refusal to absorb a $175 million pension payment for non-teaching school employees.
After that, Johnson faces a $982.4 million deficit in 2025. The mayor has warned “sacrifices will be made.
” Those sacrifices will include freezing hiring at a $2 billion-a-year Chicago Police Department that already is roughly 2,000 sworn officers short of the strength it had just a few years ago. It also means no new hires at the $663.8 million-a-year Chicago Fire Department, which is so short of paramedics and ambulances, the 80 ambulances it does have are “running night and day,” according to Pat Cleary, president of Chicago Fire Fighters Union Local 2.
“It’s ridiculous. How do you do that? How do y.