CHICAGO — Mayor Brandon Johnson is calling his budget forecast a significant challenge for the city of Chicago.

Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration is estimating a $538 million budget gap reportedly due to rising costs for personnel and pensions, but also the cost to care for the new migrants arriving in Chicago.

A piece that falls under the “Special Event Projects” line in the budget, which is estimated to go up by $149 million, nearly 300 percent – driven, the city says, by services associated with new arrivals from the border.

Mayor Johnson writing in a letter along with this budget forecast:

“I told the city that I wanted to re-route the rivers of prosperity to the banks of disinvestment so that no one in the greatest city in the world goes thirsty. This effort will take time, and it will require our partnership. Let us not be discouraged by the obstacles ahead, but hopeful about the vitality and hope we can restore across Chicago by working together.”

Johnson’s office is touting that he’s fulfilling a campaign promise to not raise the property tax levy.