How Brandon Johnson’s inner circle compares to past mayors’

Under Mayor Brandon Johnson, Black people hold more top salaried city jobs and top mayoral appointments than any other racial group, a Chicago Sun-Times analysis has found.

Along with Johnson, Chicago’s fourth Black mayor, Black city leaders now include the police superintendent, fire commissioner, corporation counsel, budget director plus heads of several city departments and the Chicago Housing Authority and the Chicago Transit Authority, all key mayoral appointments.

Among those in political posts in Johnson’s administration, jobs that pay the most or hold the greatest authority, people who identify as Latino remain underrepresented, the Sun-Times analysis found. That was the case even as Latino residents now comprise the second-largest racial or ethnic group in Chicago, after whites, with Black residents now in third place.

Asian Americans no longer hold any of these top City Hall jobs, as they did under Johnson predecessors Lori Lightfoot, Rahm Emanuel and Richard M. Daley.

For a progressive mayor who took office pledging to take care of all of Chicago’s neighborhoods, this disconnect has attracted calls from the Chicago City Council Latino Caucus and the Asian American Caucus for better representation.

A top Johnson aide says he’s committed to finding “folks that are ready to do the work and prepared to do it and can execute, and also are reflective of the population.”

Diversity among the city’s overall workforce — not just the mayor’s inner circle of political appointees — has inched closer to what Chicago looks like demographically, vastly different from the heavily white city payroll in 2011, at the end of Daley’s 22 years in office. Since then, the numbers of Black staff members and white city employees both have dipped, while the city has added Latino and Asian American workers.

But the city payroll remains disproportionately white, according to the analysis using city data from late 2023.

No single racial or ethnic group dominates Chicago’s 2.6 million population, which census figures show as being 32.7% white, 29% Latino, 28.8% Black and 7% Asian American. Nine percent say they are members of two or more races.

The city’s workforce, as of late 2023, was 40% white, 29% Black, 25% Latino and 3% Asian American. Fewer than half of 1% of city workers were American Indian/Alaskan Native or Native Hawaiian or “other Pacific Islander,” according to figures from the end of 2023.

Sworn in for his first term last May as Chicago’s 57th mayor, Johnson has moved slowly to shape his Cabinet and replace holdover senior staff. Last month, he abruptly fired two more commissioners he inherited from Lightfoot, who was Chicago’s first Black female mayor. One was Matthew Beaudet, Chicago’s first Native American commissioner heading the Department of Buildings, who’s been temporarily replaced by a Black woman. The other is Erin Harkey, a Black woman leading the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. She hasn’t departed the office yet.

Asked about the number of Latino and Asian Americans represented at top levels, Johnson’s deputy chief of staff Cristina Pacione-Zayas said, “I don’t know if I would characterize it as a challenge that is specific to one racial or ethnic group. In any position of an administration for a city this large and complex, I think you need, obviously, top talent.

“They have to have a track record of delivering what I like to call receipts. They’re subject-matter experts. They’re competent administrators. They have relationships that are critical to carrying forward the work. And one of the things I would really speak to working within city government, you’re working in a pressure cooker.

“There’s a certain level of discipline and stamina that is required,” said Pacione-Zayas, the highest paid Latina among Johnson’s aides and one of the “Core Four” trusted advisers he relies on. “So I think that transcends any racial or ethnic group.”

Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

Pacione-Zayas said that Johnson’s Cabinet of about 50 people roughly breaks down as 45% Black, 30% white and 25% Latino — and that most of that inner circle are women. Johnson has no Asian Americans in those jobs.

Having more of these power players be Black than members of other groups, Pacione-Zayas said, “I think it just happens to be that the best candidates are also Black in this case.”

Here’s a breakdown:

• Johnson has kept the leaders appointed by his predecessors at the “sister agencies” under mayoral control. Unlike city department heads, these executives work under contracts that allow big, “golden parachute” payouts unless they’re replaced for bad behavior. Latinos lead Chicago Public Schools, the Chicago Park District and the City Colleges of Chicago. Top leaders of the CTA and the CHA are Black. None of those agencies has had a white person in charge since Lightfoot appointed Rosa Escareno to replace Michael Kelly, who was ousted as park district superintendent in 2021.
• The top-salaried person under the mayor’s control is Dorval Carter Jr., tapped by Emanuel to lead the CTA in 2015. Carter’s contract pays him $376,000 a year — more than 1.5 times the mayor’s salary. Second-highest-paid is Pedro Martinez, CPS chief executive officer, who is Latino and makes $350,200 a year, followed by CHA CEO Tracey Scott, who, at $300,000 a year, has the highest salary of a Black woman or any woman in the city or sister agencies.
• Still topping City Hall’s payroll at $291,696 a year is Jamie Rhee, a white woman Emanuel named aviation commissioner in 2018. Next are the heads of the Chicago Police Department, Supt. Larry Snelling, at $275,748, and the Chicago Fire Department, Commissioner Annette Nance-Holt, at $242,508, both Black.

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times

• Following them is Johnson, at $221,052, who, until he accepted a cost-of-living raise effective Jan. 1, was making the same $216,000 salary as Lightfoot and Emanuel.
• Of the 20 mayoral aides whose salaries exceed $200,000, 11 are Black, six are white and three are Latino.
• Johnson appointed Black people to 10 positions who succeed leaders of other races, including Randy Conner over the Department of Water Management and Simbo Ige at the Department of Public Health.
• Citywide, Black workers make up the majority of workers in eight city departments — as much as 63% of the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability and 62% in Family and Support Services.
• But whites still constitute a majority of the fire department, law and ethics departments, and the office of the inspector general.
• Latinos hold the largest share of jobs in the office of Climate and Environmental Equity and the Commission on Human Relations.

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

Caucuses want more

The dearth of powerful Latinos has attracted the attention of the City Council Latino Caucus, whose members in December called out their “extreme disappointment” in Johnson’s lack of Latino appointees. Within days, he announced Latinos to lead the Department of Housing and the Office of Emergency Management and Communications.

Caucus chair Ald. Rossana Rodriguez Sanchez (33rd) said she and her colleagues since have been meeting with the mayor and have “come to an agreement” that they’ll help City Hall screen qualified candidates for job openings.

“We are hopeful that we are going to be able to improve Latino representation in city government,” she said. “A lot of times they want to fill a position, but it’s not necessarily guaranteed that you’re going to have these qualified Latino candidates or Asian candidates to be able to apply.”

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times

The imbalance predates Johnson, said Rodriguez Sanchez, who was elected alongside Lightfoot in 2019, adding, “For the four years, it was a constant conversation in doing better in putting Latine people in positions of leadership” despite “lots of people who are qualified.”

Lightfoot appointed Latinos to lead two sister agencies and some others to her Cabinet. She filled four key leadership posts with Asian Americans. Under Johnson, there still are none.

“I appreciate that somebody else noticed,” said Ald. Nicole Lee (11th), who became the city’s first alderperson of Asian descent when Lightfoot appointed her in 2022. “It’s not a small thing, especially because we’re coming off an administration where there were so many great Asian American leaders. … The city’s finances were run by these three very smart and capable Asian American women.”

Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

Lee said the administration has not approached her about proposing qualified candidates for jobs. That’s a conversation she’d like to have as she’d like to be more involved in recruiting from her community.

For Lee, the benefits of diversity transcend racial identity politics — or ”having a face and ticking a box.”

“We need representation in the administration’s higher ranking jobs where they have influence on the decisions that matter in the city and in government operations,” she said. “It feels good to know that people who look like you ... it does make a difference. … You pay more attention if you see yourself represented more in government.

“It’s not about diversity in ethnicities, it’s about diversity in thought. If everybody comes from the same background, then we’re missing out on being a truly representative government for our constituents, especially in a city as diverse as Chicago.”

Contributing: Fran Spielman

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times