The record.

The school-board purge

October – December 2024

In roughly three months, Johnson cycled through two entirely mayor-appointed school boards to oust CPS CEO Pedro Martinez — who had refused the mayor's push for a $300 million short-term loan and refused a request to resign. The first board resigned en masse; the second fired Martinez "without cause" on December 20, 2024, weeks before the new partially-elected board took office, despite incoming elected members asking for a pause.

Martinez sued, alleging board members were appointed "to do the bidding" of the mayor and the teachers union. NPR/WBEZ reported the maneuver shocked city and state officials, who called it a power grab.

The one-week board president

Appointed October 7, 2024 · Resigned October 31, 2024

Johnson's hand-picked president of the Chicago Board of Education, Rev. Mitchell Ikenna Johnson, lasted one week before resigning over resurfaced antisemitic and misogynistic social media posts. Gov. Pritzker publicly called for his resignation; 40 of 50 aldermen signed a demand letter. The mayor's most important education appointment — evidently unvetted.

The "untouchable" press secretary

May 2023 – October 2024

Ronnie Reese, the mayor's longtime friend and communications director, was fired in October 2024 after three internal complaints alleging sexual harassment, misogyny, racism, unwanted physical contact, and intimidation — documented in personnel records the Chicago Tribune obtained via FOIA. One complaint said Reese told staffers he was "untouchable." The chief of staff was formally notified of the complaints, yet Reese kept his job for months. A year earlier, three press-office staffers who complained about Reese were fired and placed on the city's do-not-hire list. Johnson claimed he learned of the problems only when they became public.

The advisor the Inspector General said to fire

2026

Inspector General Deborah Witzburg recommended Johnson fire his top political advisor, Jason Lee, after Lee refused to cooperate with an OIG investigation into a complaint that he threatened to withhold public-safety services as a strong-arm tactic to whip City Council votes — conduct that has gotten other city employees terminated. Johnson refused. In departing remarks, Witzburg said the administration showed "a pattern of decisions to challenge, disempower and to obstruct the work of this office."

Firing the violence-prevention chief during record-low homicides

March 19, 2026

Johnson fired Garien Gatewood, the first-ever Deputy Mayor of Community Safety — his administration's point person on violence reduction — with no public explanation beyond "going in a different direction." This during a period when homicides had fallen to a 60-year low. Gatewood publicly alleged a City Hall "culture where when you work to hold people accountable, you become a target," naming the chief of staff and Jason Lee. More than 20 aldermen signed a letter condemning the firing.

Firing the COVID chief — with a Tupac quote

August 11, 2023

Three months into his term, Johnson fired Dr. Allison Arwady, the nationally recognized architect of Chicago's COVID response — the day after the Chicago Board of Health urged him to keep her. No succession plan: her second-in-command also stepped down, leaving a non-clinician finance deputy as interim. Asked whether the firing was retaliation over CTU's 2022 COVID-safety clash with Arwady, Johnson answered by quoting Tupac ("Real eyes, right, realize real lies") without addressing the question. Her replacement, Dr. Simbo Ige, later resigned in May 2026 after the Tribune reported the health department voluntarily returned tens of millions in federal COVID grants to Washington months before they expired.

The 2026 senior-staff exodus

2026

In a single year, the administration lost its budget director (Annette Guzman, August — just before budget season), its acting CFO (Steven Mahr, late July, along with his deputy — Mahr had replaced CFO Jill Jaworski, who left in January), its corporation counsel (Mary Richardson-Lowry), its human relations commissioner, its HR chief, and its fleet & facility management head. Individual departures have individual explanations; the pattern is the story — institutional leadership hollowed out seven months before the election.

The promise: ambassadors, not police

2023 campaign & inaugural address

Johnson campaigned on addressing CTA safety "through better reliability and Transit Ambassadors," deploying mental health professionals and housing advocates rather than more police. His 2025 CTA budget proposed $88.47 million for private unarmed security — up from $65.15 million in 2024. A Tribune analysis of federal data (March 2026) found CTA's 2024 passenger assault rate was up to five times that of comparable systems — New York, LA, Boston, Philadelphia, D.C. — while peer systems' rates fell as ridership recovered and Chicago's kept rising.

The breaking point

November 2025

On November 17, 2025, 26-year-old Bethany MaGee was doused with gasoline and set on fire aboard a Blue Line train. Her alleged attacker had 72 prior arrests, was out on bond, and was allegedly violating an ankle-monitor curfew. He was charged federally with committing a terrorist attack on a mass transportation system. The FTA administrator later wrote: "The attack on Ms. MaGee was preventable." Ten months later, on Labor Day 2026, a 29-year-old man was pushed from a moving Red Line train and killed.

The reversal — after Washington forced his hand

September 2025 – April 2026

In September 2025, USDOT Secretary Sean Duffy rejected CTA's safety plan and threatened to withhold $50 million in federal funds. In December, the FTA issued a formal Special Directive: increase law enforcement presence or lose the money. Only then did the administration reverse course — in April 2026, CTA ended contracts with ~250 unarmed private security guards, redirecting the funds to sworn officers, adding Cook County sheriff's deputies and doubling off-duty officer patrols. The 2026 crime drop the administration now cites came after, and because of, federal coercion — not the ambassador-and-outreach strategy Johnson campaigned on.

The emptiest schools in the district

2024–26 school years

The 10 emptiest CPS schools averaged just 11% capacity, with average per-pupil spending of ~$38,000 vs. ~$20,000 district-wide. At Douglass Academy High School: 27 students in a 1,000-seat building at $54,695 per student. Chalkbeat confirmed in September 2026 that Douglass and Spry high schools each serve fewer than 40 students. At the 10 least-utilized schools, just 3% of students met grade-level standards in 2024. Meanwhile CPS added 9,790 staff positions since 2019 even as enrollment fell by 45,000 students (Chicago Tribune, May 2026).

"The day of closing schools… is over"

May – September 2026

In May 2026, Johnson explicitly ruled out school closings to address the $732 million hole, saying it was up to Springfield to approve new progressive taxes (Sun-Times). At his re-election launch: "The day of closing schools and shutting down mental health clinics and attacking workers, that day is over." Senate President Don Harmon declined to advance a closure-moratorium bill because he accepted Johnson's personal promise not to close any schools. The Board's moratorium on closures runs through the 2026–27 school year — and CTU is pressing to extend it further.

Cutting staff inside tiny schools instead of consolidating buildings

2026–27 school year

Rather than consolidate buildings, CPS cut assistant-principal positions at schools under 250 students for 2026–27 to stem the deficit (Sun-Times) — trimming staff within tiny schools while keeping the buildings open. The nonpartisan Civic Federation flagged "inefficiently allocated resources due to long-term declining enrollment, creating a need for right-sizing operations" as a core fiscal challenge. Even the 2026 school-board president race is shifting: 3 of 4 candidates told a WBEZ/Sun-Times/Chalkbeat questionnaire they'd consider closures as a last resort.

The 50–0 humiliation

November 14, 2024

To close a $982 million gap, Johnson proposed a $300 million property tax increase. In an unprecedented move, the council pulled the levy out of the budget and voted it down 50–0 — unanimous, including his closest allies. Johnson then claimed the proposal was a tactic "to get people's attention": "as a public-school teacher, sometimes we do things to get people's attention." Ald. Marty Quinn called it "a defeat of epic proportions."

The council wrote its own budget — he wouldn't even sign it

December 20–23, 2025

After the Finance Committee rejected his 2026 budget — with its revived corporate head tax, cloud-tax hike, and first-of-its-kind social media tax — the council passed its own $16.6 billion budget, 30–18, with no head tax. Johnson refused to sign or veto it, letting it take effect to avoid a shutdown — the first time in modern Chicago history a budget passed without the sitting mayor's support, per the Better Government Association. He announced the decision flanked by CTU president Stacy Davis Gates.

In fairness, the BGA notes the council's version kept roughly 98% of Johnson's spending plan — the fight was over revenue, not spending. The humiliation stands either way: a mayor who couldn't pass his own budget.

The first veto in 19 years — and it stood

June – July 2025

The council passed Ald. Brian Hopkins's "snap curfew" ordinance 27–22 over Johnson's opposition. On June 20, Johnson vetoed it — the first Chicago mayoral veto since 2006. On July 16, the council tried to override and fell short of the 34 votes needed. The veto stood, but the episode marked the collapse of any working majority: a mayor forced to veto his own council's public-safety bill.

Then came November

November 21, 2025

Four months after Johnson's veto killed the snap curfew, the scenario the ordinance was written for played out anyway. After the Millennium Park Christmas tree lighting, large groups of juveniles gathered downtown; two shootings in the Loop left nine people shot — including 14-year-old Armani Floyd, killed. Ald. Brian Hopkins said roughly 300 juveniles were "rioting in the Loop" and that officers were attacked with mace and stun guns. Johnson called it "emotional whiplash" and condemned "unsanctioned after-gatherings," urging adults to chaperone young people at large events.

The honest version: no one can prove a curfew ordinance would have prevented that night. But the mayor vetoed the enforcement tool his council wanted, offered supervision-by-chaperone instead, and the takeovers kept happening.

The running tally of defiance

2024 – 2026

After Johnson canceled the ShotSpotter contract, the council voted 33–14 to give the police superintendent power to extend it — a two-thirds repudiation (the contract was still decommissioned, since the vote couldn't legally bind an executive decision). His 2025 budget squeaked through 27–23, the narrowest margin of the modern era; budgets used to pass with one or two dissents. And on September 28, 2026 — with a projected $882 million gap for 2027 — 29 aldermen signed a letter pre-emptively warning him not to propose the head tax again, including his own Finance chair: "A great city should court employers, not punish them for the act of putting people to work."

Three budgets, three crises

2024 – 2026

Every Johnson budget has opened with a nine- or ten-figure hole: ~$982 million (2025), $1.15 billion (2026), and a projected ~$882 million for 2027. His answers kept collapsing — the $300M property tax (killed 50–0), the head tax (rejected by his own Finance Committee, then by the full council), a social-media tax and sports-betting tax that went nowhere. The 2026 budget that finally passed leans on one-time revenues and borrowing — exactly the fixes rating agencies warned about.

His signature tax — defeated by voters

March 19, 2024

"Bring Chicago Home" was Johnson's centerpiece campaign promise: raise the real-estate transfer tax on sales over $1 million to fund homelessness services (~$100M/year projected). Voters rejected it, roughly 53%–47%. Critics noted he never specified a spending plan, and most of the burden would have fallen on businesses, not mansions.

The downgrades

January 2025 – August 2026

In January 2025, S&P downgraded Chicago's general-obligation debt, citing the "sizable structural budgetary imbalance" in Johnson's 2025 budget and "lack of willingness among city leadership to cut spending." Kroll followed the same month; Fitch cut the outlook to negative in May 2025; Moody's followed that summer. The Wall Street Journal (Aug 2026): three ratings firms have downgraded Chicago since January 2025 — to levels two or three notches above junk — while pension and debt payments consume roughly 40% of the net operating budget.

The $639.6 million migrant tab

August 2022 – December 2024

Inspector General David Glockner's July 2026 explainer put the final number on the "new arrivals" mission: $639,654,965 serving 46,282 people across 38 shelters — $269.1 million (42%) straight from the city's Corporate Fund, the rest federal, state, and county money. The top vendor, Favorite Healthcare Staffing, collected $400.3 million.

The signature fiasco: Johnson green-lit a winterized tent "base camp" for ~1,500 migrants on a former industrial site in Brighton Park — before the environmental report came back showing elevated mercury, lead, and arsenic. Gov. Pritzker halted it on December 5, 2023. The camp never opened; the state still paid contractor GardaWorld a $1.3 million settlement (despite Pritzker's pledge taxpayers wouldn't pay), and the city spent $1.7 million on remediation and a settlement with the property owner.

To be fair — and the IG said so explicitly — the office found the city's spending reports "accurate and transparent" and 99.6% of sampled invoices followed procurement rules. The charge is the policy choice and the scale, not graft: nearly two-thirds of a billion dollars while the budget bled.