Proposal would require City Council approval to spend any federal relief funds over $1 million

Shortly before closing the books on 2023, Mayor Brandon Johnson shifted $95 million in federal pandemic relief funds to cover the mounting cost of Chicago’s migrant crisis — after informing City Council members, but without seeking their approval.

That won’t happen again if Ald. Bill Conway (34th) and Scott Waguespack (32nd) have anything to say about it.

They’re joining forces on a proposed ordinance to require the Council’s prior approval for any spending exceeding $1 million from funds the city received from the package of federal COVID-19 relief known as the American Rescue Plan.

With key city revenue exceeding budget expectations for 2023, the city no longer needed to use all $152 million in relief funds designated to replace lost revenue. That freed up $95 million in federal money for the migrant crisis, “meeting the city’s financial obligations without cutting services that Chicagoans rely on every day,” the mayor said then.

Conway doesn’t buy the mayor’s explanation. Not by a long shot.

“We were told that it was part of 2023 [spending] two days before the end of the year, and after the money had already been spent, which is clearly inappropriate. … It looks like that was done in a willful manner to not let us have this oversight. … They said they didn’t want us to have to take another difficult vote on this crisis,” Conway told the Sun-Times.

“During budget season, we sit through hours and hours ... of budget meetings. It’s our job. We do it in amounts that are far less than $95 million. It is important that we have this oversight and this transparency,” he said, adding that the city still has $400 million in unspent COVID-19 relief funds. “That money shouldn’t be spent without our approval.”

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times

Conway said Johnson “talks a lot about collaboration, but did not collaborate on how this money was spent and didn’t collaborate on a whole host” of other things.

That includes the decision to use GardaWorld to build winterized migrant camps, including the now-canceled Brighton Park camp, “where his office didn’t work with the local alderwoman and didn’t work with the state EPA” until Gov. J.B. Pritzker stepped in.

Waguespack served as Finance Committee chair under Mayor Lori Lightfoot. He was replaced by Ald. Pat Dowell (3rd), whose endorsement helped Johnson go from single-digit obscurity to the mayor’s office.

Despite the sweeping emergency powers granted to Lightfoot during the pandemic, Waguespack noted all spending over $1 million required City Council approval. That level of oversight must be maintained, he said.

When it comes to COVID-19 relief, “we can’t just have one person dictating where it goes without at least having a discussion,” Waguespack told the Sun-Times, noting that U.S. Treasury Department guidelines include specific criteria for how that money must be spent — and those criteria included no guidance on spending money on the migrant crisis.

“So this isn’t just about the Council having a discussion. It’s about making sure that the U.S. Treasury would allow for these funds to be spent directly on migrants,” Waguespack said.

The mayor’s office issued a statement in response to the proposed ordinance that did not address the demand for Council oversight of spending over $1 million.

It simply said that “higher than anticipated revenues” had paved the way for the mayor to allocate the $95 million in relief funds toward costs stemming from the migrant crisis, “including leases for shelters, food services, and shelter staffing.”

The statement continued that the city “does not anticipate” using the remaining $400 million in relief funds to cover the costs of handling new arrivals.

Erin Hooley/AP

Conway has fast emerged as one of Johnson’s most outspoken Council critics.

He recently accused senior mayoral adviser Jason Lee of tying an offer to clean up tent-filled West Loop viaducts that had raised safety concerns to Conway’s support for two key items on Johnson’s progressive to-do list.

On Monday, Conway, who thought about running for mayor himself, flatly denied he is positioning himself to run for mayor against Johnson, saying Johnson was “great to me” during Conway’s failed campaign for state’s attorney.

“I stayed out of the mayor’s race,” Conway said. “I am still hopeful that he will be a successful mayor, and I am doing what I can to try and help him do that. But we need his administration to be open and transparent with us so that we in City Council can work on this humanitarian crisis together.”