CHICAGO — Mayor Brandon Johnson announced Monday he will restore the critical positions in the Chicago police department responsible for enforcing the department’s federal consent decree after weeks of backlash that cutting those roles would endanger reform efforts.

The mayor’s office released a statement that he would introduce a budget amendment adding back the 162 vacancies he slashed in his 2025 budget that center on roles across the offices of constitutional policing, community policing and more. It’s the latest instance of the mayor reversing course on a controversial provision in next year’s budget, which faces a $1 billion hole, including backing down on an original proposal for a $300 million property tax hike.

“My administration is taking significant steps forward to fully support the implementation of CPD’s consent decree reforms and ensure effective constitutional policing,” Johnson wrote in the statement. “The investments we are making in our balanced budget reflect our commitment to improving community policing and a better, stronger, safer Chicago. We see progress in key areas. As I have always said, we have a commitment to reform, and we will continue to make the investments to fund our obligations under the consent decree.”

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul had warned Johnson that the mayor’s move to slash those roles would risk the city “being held in contempt of court for failing to comply” with the order, according to a copy of the letter that was obtained by a Freedom of Information Act request this month. That same day, Maggie Hickey, the independent monitor for assessing the city’s compliance with the consent decree, warned slashing those positions would be a “devastating blow” to CPD reform.

The Johnson administration in the same mayoral release on Monday quoted the attorney general as saying, “I appreciate that the concerns that I expressed regarding the proposed cuts to CPD’s budget were heard and addressed, and I am encouraged by the positive conversations I had with the corporation counsel.”

Even Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling previously suggested he had fought against the cuts, and that he did not “want to break that momentum and I want to make sure that we keep going in the right direction” toward consent decree compliance. In the Monday mayor statement Snelling said reversing those cuts would “continue the progress the Department has made.”

The Chicago Police Department has thus far made sluggish progress in complying with the binding court order that came about more than five years ago following the Chicago police murder of Laquan McDonald. Hickey’s latest report covering the first half of 2024 found the city is at full compliance with just 9% of its requirements, up from 7% in the previous monitoring period. Secondary compliance — which means cops have been trained on the policies — was at 37% of monitorable provisions in the same period, up from 35% compared to the last report.

Johnson ran for mayor in 2023 on a platform of police reform, but a nearly $1 billion fiscal gap in his second budget season has put him in a tough spot with how to make up the deficit without angering the various factions of City Council who are more and more fed up with his rocky tenure thus far.

Johnson’s statement on Monday did not immediately elaborate on what the 162 positions all were or how much restoring them will deepen the budget crisis.

His $2.1 billion Chicago police budget plan for next year cut 456 vacant positions, including 358 civilian positions. Many were dedicated to reform efforts. The proposal slashed staffing for the Office of Constitutional Policing and Reform by 57%, from 65 to 28. Established by interim CPD Superintendent Charlie Beck in 2020, the office was meant to combine all of the functions tied to consent decree efforts under one office, including training, professional counseling and reform management.

CPD’s training division, which trains new recruits for service and current employees for promotions, would shrink by some 27% under Johnson’s proposal, taking it to 237 employees.

The professional counseling division that provides mental health care and other assessments for CPD employees would drop by about the same percentage, from 35 to 25 employees. The reform management group responsible for tracking reform efforts consistent with the consent decree would shrink from 19 to 17.

The Office of Community Policing would see its staffing dip from 141 down to 55 employees, a decrease of 61%, under Johnson’s proposal. That office coordinates with other city departments to “create a more cohesive partnership” between CPD and the neighborhoods they serve, according to the department’s 2023 annual report.

Aside from Raoul and Hickey, several aldermen and outside groups expressed serious concerns about the impact the cuts would have on CPD’s reform efforts and its bottom line, arguing the civilian consent decree employees are often paid less than sworn officers and that their work would help the department lessen police misconduct cases that end up costing the city millions of dollars annually.

The most recent warning came Monday morning from one of the city’s own oversight agencies, the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability, which urged the council to reverse course.

While acknowledging the city’s “severe budget challenges,” CCPSA President Anthony Driver noted in the commission’s annual budget analysis that slowed reform efforts “means more suffering and higher costs. Just as the City has not proposed cutting staff that generate revenue, the City should not cut staff whose work is essential to improve police practices, reduce harm, and reduce the costs associated with bad or unconstitutional policing.”

Most of the cuts in the budget came from the “transformational” civilian positions the department added just last year to help with investigations, training, services for crime victims, and analyzing data and developing policies. Of the 456 vacant positions that were eliminated, 358 were civilian ones. Cuts to the constitutional policing or training offices, CCPSA warned, would undercut efforts to reduce harm to civilians and reduce lawsuits.

“In the long run, the proposed cuts may cost much more than they save,” the report concluded.

The consent decree roles have hardly been the only aspect of the mayor’s $17.3 billion spending plan that has drawn complaints. His proposed $300 million property tax hike was resoundingly shot down 50-0 this month, and a proposed 35% hike on the city alcohol liquor tax has drawn similar enmity.

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The Tribune’s Jake Sheridan and Sam Charles contributed.

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