Illinois, a crisis.

First off tonight, Mayor Brandon Johnson is calling for a 300 million dollar property tax hike.

>> Saying he had no choice but to break one of his central campaign promises in order to avoid cuts to services and thousands of layoffs.

Here's what Johnson told older people this morning at City Hall about his 17 billion dollar spending plan.

>> This is tough.

It is something that I grappled with for weeks and weeks.

We didn't make this decision.

I would certainly much rather tax the rich.

>> W t Tw News reporter Heather Sharon joins us now from City Hall with more on the proposed tax hike.

Heather Johnson's at the property tax increase, which would be the biggest since 2016 is necessary to close that 982.3 million dollar budget shortfall.

What would it mean for Chicagoans?

>> Well, if you own a home worth about $250,000 it will likely mean that your property tax bill will increase between $22240 a year.

Now that is on top of any increase in the value of your property.

And that is all under way by the Cook County assessor's office.

So this could have a big impact on Chicagoans who have been struggling to stay in their homes amid rising property values.

It is also, as you said, the largest property tax increase in nearly a decade.

And it comes on the Hill heels of a pretty significant increase over the years with Chicagoans paying a significant amount more in property taxes to fund the city's basic services such as police, fire and garbage pickup.

>> Heather House is Johnson propose closing that gap?

>> Well, as mayors have done in the past, he relies on a pool of funds dedicated to fighting blight across the city.

city's tax increment financing districts he says has 570 million dollars in surplus funds that ongoing projects projects don't need.

So he declared those to be in surplus, sending about 130 million dollars to the city and 330 million dollars to the Chicago Public Schools.

Now, we've talked a lot about that agency's financial crisis that will help the schools make a required pension payment of about 175 million dollars.

But it is not enough to potentially avoid having to file or make cuts to the district's operations.

They still don't know how they would pay for a new contract for teachers and principals leaving a lot of unknown questions.

This evening.

Yeah, a lot of a lot of questions, Heather.

So the mayor spending plan also proposes.

>> Making that additional payment to the city's for pension funds funds.

But why not cancel that payment?

then maybe avoid the need for that property tax hike.

>> Well, that is what a lot of older people are asking tonight in all the city will pay more than 2.8 billion dollars into its for pension funds which are all woefully underfunded.

The mayor fiercely defended this proposal saying that if the city does not make additional payment, the city will have to pay billions more over the next several years.

And it will threaten the safety and security of the pensions that thousands of former city employees rely on to pay their bills.

Now that they're no longer working, that is going to be the subject of good deal of controversy during the upcoming hearings because if you if the city did not make that additional payment, they could cancel the property tax increase, but it could also potentially mean that it would cost the city more to borrow money if Wall Street age rating agencies lower the city's credit rating.

>> And no easy answers.

There thrown at City Hall for us.