Mayor Brandon Johnson is now proposing hiking Chicago property taxes by $150 million, down from his original $300 million recommendation for 2025 that was unanimously struck down by the City Council last week.

Mayoral aides and some Council members have agreed to cut the proposed increase in half as talks continue. The largest chunk of new revenue — $128 million — will come from raising the personal property lease tax on cloud computing to 11%.

Mayor Brandon Johnson is all but giving up on his proposed $300 million property tax hike before aldermen kill it, and pushing them to find other revenue in its place to avert layoffs. Johnson’s administration is combing over alternatives to the tax jump after members of the City Council scheduled a special meeting in the hopes of voting it down.

Mayor Brandon Johnson has said he's willing to negotiate with the City Council on his proposed budget, but wouldn't commit to any specific alternatives.

The Chicago City Council on Thursday rejected Mayor Brandon Johnson’s plan to raise property taxes by $300 million that would have helped close a budget gap of nearly $1 billion for next year.

WGN Political Analyst Paul Lisnek joined WGN Evening News to discuss several big stories from the week. This week's topics include alders rejecting Mayor Johnson's proposed $300 million property tax hike,

In a special meeting, Chicago's City Council voted unanimously to remove the mayor's proposed $300 million property tax increase from the 2025 budget plan. Why it matters: The removal of the tax hike will force Mayor Brandon Johnson to make hard decisions on other ways to generate more revenue or where to make cuts to city services.

The overwhelming vote was largely symbolic. Negotiations to reduce or eliminate the property tax hike and replace it with a mix of new revenue and reprogrammed federal pandemic relief funds began last weekend.

The city’s 50 alders on Thursday sent Mayor Brandon Johnson a strong message, unanimously rejecting a $300 million property tax hike he unveiled in his $17.3 billion city budget proposal last month.