World Courant
Invoices and receipts from Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration have raised new questions on extravagant spending as the town faces an almost billion greenback price range shortfall.
Paperwork uncovered by native information station NBC 5 revealed that within the grip of fiscal disaster, the town spent greater than $80,000 to redecorate and renovate an workplace within the Chicago Cultural Middle for first woman Stacie Johnson.
“The invoices and receipts, obtained by NBC 5 Investigates via a collection of Freedom of Data Act requests, present that work order requests started in February and continued via August of this 12 months to renovate and redecorate Room 306 within the Chicago Cultural Middle,” the report stated.
Electricians, carpenters and painters on the town’s payroll have been contracted for the work, in response to an bill from the town’s Fleet and Facility Administration division, additionally known as 2FM, NBC 5 reported. The employees accrued greater than 350 hours of labor at a value of over $25,000.
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Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s workplace is dealing with scrutiny after the town spent $80,000 on renovations to first woman Johnson’s workplace. (AP Picture/Charles Rex Arbogast)
One other bill reportedly exhibits the town paid greater than $43,000 for furnishings, together with a $2,200 workplace chair and a $4,400 desk labeled the “First Woman’s Desk” on the doc. The town spent one other $4,600 on a desk for a staffer and greater than $8,300 on two membership chairs, in response to the outlet.
The bill was dated Aug. 13, with a Sept. 12 due date, NBC 5 reported.
Mayor Johnson’s workplace didn’t reply to Fox Information Digital’s request for remark.
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Underneath Johnson’s administration, Chicago faces an almost $1 billion price range shortfall in 2025. (Vincent Alban/Getty Photographs)
Confronted with the invoices and requested to defend the town’s spending, Johnson instructed NBC 5, “So, the Cultural Middle has all the time been a location for dignitaries; each first woman has had workplace house there. Renovations for my workplace or some other workplace is customary process. Our dedication to spend money on folks continues to be to spend money on folks.”
The mayor pushed again towards follow-up questions in regards to the optics of extreme spending at a time when his administration is contemplating layoffs of metropolis staff to chop prices.
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Johnson was elected in 2023 as a favourite candidate of the left, on a platform of accelerating spending on metropolis companies. (AP Picture/Charles Rex Arbogast)
“The acquisition of a desk isn’t going to vary the monetary structural injury that has been in place for a really very long time. So this is the reason we ask – and I imply this respectfully – we ask way more profound questions than that. We ask, how can we be sure that the structural injury that is been created over the course of a long time – we reroute the rivers, if you’ll, to be sure that we get to the locations the place there’s dry land. And that is what we’re doing,” he stated.
When NBC 5 pressed the problem, Johnson criticized the outlet’s questions. “So I have been mayor for 17 months, and you’ve got a query of how I really feel about optics? Simply return on assessment the tape. If I have been to permit my management to be based mostly on somebody’s opinion of me, it could be a derelict of obligation. I by no means query my place to spend money on folks. I do not do that for optics; I do that to rework lives.”
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The mayor stated he’s extra targeted on the optics of hiring younger folks for summer season jobs, constructing inexpensive housing and guaranteeing that colleges have counselors and social staff, in addition to investing in Chicago’s South and West sides.
However Johnson nonetheless has not put ahead a plan to shut the town’s projected $982 million price range hole.
Chris Pandolfo is a breaking information reporter for Fox Information Digital. Ship tricks to chris.pandolfo@fox.com and comply with him on Twitter @ChrisCPandolfo.
