Jennie Bennett spent four years as Chicago’s chief financial officer, faced with structurally imbalanced budgets and plummeting revenue during the pandemic. She led the push to build the city’s first casino and her work helped the city make fiscal improvements to shed its one junk credit rating from Moody’s Investors Service last year.She hands the keys to the city’s coffers over to Jill Jaworski, a 25-year veteran of municipal finance, after new mayor Brandon Johnson was inaugurated on Monday.
Chicago is on more stable financial footing than where it stood just a few years ago, with the outgoing administration projecting a $698 million surplus in 2022 and 2023 that will go toward chipping away at its massive pension liability until revenue from its first casino starts flowing. The threat of an economic downturn, however, looms for the third-largest US city and millions in costs are adding up to care for an influx of migrants from the US borders.
