Chicago's budget debate has increasingly focused on whether the City should adopt stricter standards for structural budget balance and long-term financial planning. New York City provides one example of a major U.S. city operating under a more rigorous legal framework. This report examines how major U.S. cities prepare budgets and compares Chicago’s flexible budgeting with New York City’s stringent budget-preparation requirements.
Legislative deliberations over the City of Chicago's (Chicago or ‘the City’) FY2026 budget, which ran from mid-October through passage in late December 2025, were a contentious, opaque, and at times messy affair that laid bare what has long been a deeply flawed process. In the absence of formal structures, procedural rigor, sufficient technical resources and expertise, and standards-based decision-making, the process devolved into confusion that at times verged on chaos, prompting not…
Chicago is the only major city in the United States that operates without a constitution, which, for cities, is referred to as a charter. This absence is not just an anomaly; it fundamentally impacts every aspect of our City’s processes. Without a charter, Chicago’s governance rests on a patchwork of ordinances and informal traditions that can change with each administration. This has created a system with no clear separation of powers, limited resources for the City Council to serve as a co-…
Chicago is the only major U.S. city without a governing charter—a formal, constitutional framework that defines how city government should operate. As a result, the city functions through a patchwork of state laws, municipal codes, and informal customs that concentrate excessive power in the executive branch, limit legislative effectiveness, and lack enforceable transparency and accountability mechanisms. This structural deficiency has contributed to long-term fiscal instability, poor decision-…
In recent years there has been renewed interest in developing and implementing a city charter for Chicago. A key theme in Ed Bachrach and Austin Berg’s 2019 book, The New Chicago Way: Lessons from Other Big Cities, is the idea that a city charter could help reform and strengthen the City’s governmental institutions. The 2023 joint series from Crain’s Chicago Business and the University of Chicago Center for Effective Government, “One City, 50 Wards: Does the City That Works Actually…
