It’s clear Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and the Chicago City Council are no closer to reaching a budget deal, as top financial officials in the mayor’s administration have largely rejected the alternative budget plan presented by council members.

The 2026 budget plan needs to be approved by the mayor and at least 26 of the 50 alders by the end of the year. In October, Johnson presented his plan, which included a $21 per employee corporate head tax on the city’s largest companies each month, plus a host of other taxes. A month later, the mayor’s revenue ideas were soundly rejected by the council’s Finance Committee.

Alders began crafting their own plan, and 26 of them signed a letter Tuesday presenting an alternative proposal. The alternate plan took out the corporate head tax, replacing it instead with items like an increased garbage fee, with an exemption for seniors, and an increased liquor tax at liquor stores.

The mayor’s financial team — Chief Financial Officer Jill Jaworski, Budget Director Annette Guzman and City Comptroller Michael Belsky — responded to the alders Thursday, thanking them for their plan but rebuking several of their proposals, saying, for example, that an improved debt collection plan, is “not supported by legal, financial, or operational realities.” The mayor’s administration said increasing the garbage collection fee from $9.50 to $18 per month would represent a 90 percent increase in a year, which would be a financial hardship for families.

“At a time when many communities are already experiencing substantial property tax increases through the recent property assessments conducted by the Cook County Assessor and the appeals approved by the Board of Review, imposing another major cost escalation would create an immediate and disproportionate burden on households least able to absorb it,” Jaworski, Guzman and Belsky wrote in a joint statement to the 26 alders.

The mayor’s team also made it clear the corporate head tax — which it calls a “Community Safety Surcharge” — will stay in the budget proposal, despite objections from more than half the council. Opponents of the head tax call it a “job killer.” The mayor’s team challenged that notion, saying the assertion that it would “disincentivize economic growth is not substantiated by data.”

“The assumption that corporate taxation directly affects employment growth lacks empirical support. By investing in proven community safety interventions, we are making Chicago better for businesses. A progressive revenue like the Community Safety Surcharge, one that asks those who have benefited the most from the city’s growth and prosperity to contribute their fair share, is not a threat to prosperity, but a prerequisite,” Jaworski, Guzman and Belsky wrote in a joint statement to the 26 alders.

Ald. Nicole Lee and Ald. Scott Waguespack responded to the mayor’s administration’s rebuke of their alternate proposal, disagreeing with their assessment.

“The mayor’s office has offered no new ideas – only criticisms of our work. This is not anyone’s idea of actual collaboration,” Lee said.

“It is time for Mayor Johnson to accept the reality that his budget is not going to pass as is,” Waguespack said. “We will take the necessary steps required to move this process forward on our own.”

The city paid the accounting firm Ernst and Young $3 million to outline efficiencies that could help Chicago close its billion-dollar gap in its $16 billion 2026 budget. Among the options in the report: consolidating city purchasing and fleet management, streamlining city departments and better managing health care costs.

Alders have urged Johnson to adopt more recommendations from the report, but his finance team responded in their memo Thursday, saying, “It is important to note that the City’s Financial and Strategic Reform Options report presents a set of options for consideration—not mandates.”

The mayor’s administration noted that it has made changes to its own initial proposal, including the full restoration of the Chicago Public Library’s circulation budget, additional money for the advanced pension payment, more funding for community programs and upping a program that helps low-income people with disabilities make their homes more accessible.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio is among 30 states that require a semester-long financial literacy class for high school graduation.

Students in financial literacy learn about saving, building credit, debt, budgeting and fraud.

As with many states, Ohio’s financial literacy requirement is new, taking effect for students who entered ninth grade on July 1, 2022.

Nationally, 73% of high school students will have received financial literacy education before they graduate, according to an August report by the National Endowment for Financial Education.

This is up from only 9% of high school students in 2017, the organization said.

But in recent years, state legislatures have increasingly passed laws requiring students to obtain financial literacy, recognizing the complex financial choices teens face as they graduate and enter adulthood, according to the Council for Economic Education.

From budgeting and managing debt, to banking and fraud prevention and understanding the economy, students need a baseline of knowledge to navigate their financial futures, the council stated in a 2024 report.

States of all political stripes are requiring financial literacy to graduate, according to the National Endowment for Financial Education, including Ohio’s neighbors: Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

In the state budget the General Assembly passed in June, lawmakers made a change to financial literacy, permitting students who work in public and private school-based branches of credit unions to earn credit toward their graduation requirement.

Read More: Budding entrepreneurs: High school finance lessons blossom for brothers into business success

Some credit unions have run school branches for years, as well as offer financial literacy education.

The push for financial education is already helping former high school students who used the foundational knowledge to launch businesses.

In Lake County, twins Derek and Dominik Zirkle relied on the financial literacy education they received at Madison High School, provided in part by Theory Federal Credit Union, to start D & D Meadery, a honey wine business that opened in 2024 and distributes to more than 300 retail locations.

The class provided the Zirkle twins, now 24, “the foundations to begin the journey,” Dominik Zirkle said. The twins began their business by using their savings, living leanly and reinvesting profits. They sought help from a Theory certified financial counselor who had previously visited their high school class.

Lake County-based Cardinal Credit Union has run school branches for years.

A Cardinal employee runs the branches, but students can volunteer as tellers to gain hands-on experience, performing activities such as making deposits, withdrawing money and paying loans.

Credit unions, including Cardinal, deposit small amounts of money into student accounts so students can practice moving funds, writing checks, and making mistakes in a safe environment.

This allows them to “afford to make minor mistakes,” said Michael DeSantis, Cardinal’s educational finance coordinator.

Do you know the difference between interest rates and mortgage rates? What about a high-yield savings account?

Many of us learn about these terms well into adulthood, if at all, whereas public high school students in Florida do not.

That’s because financial literacy is now a requirement for graduation.

Ms. Martha Delgado doesn’t teach your typical high school class. When students leave her classroom, many will be well ahead of most adults in managing money.

“I worked during the summer, so 30% of my paycheck goes to my savings and the rest goes to my wants and needs,” Willne Pierre said.

Robert Morgan High School juniors Pierre and Diego Acosta are part of a growing group of Florida public school students who will graduate equipped with financial literacy and money management skills.

It’s all thanks to the Dorothy L. Hukill Financial Literacy Act that Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law in 2022. The law requires students to take a personal finance course, and the class of 2027 will be the first class to graduate under the new requirement.

The instruction students are getting goes beyond opening a checking or savings account; they’re also learning how to invest, use credit cards responsibly, understand credit scores, and even apply for financial aid when they go to college.

“They’re learning about when you go to get loans, how do the loans work, compound interest, simple interest, things that I would’ve loved to have when I was growing up as an adult and applying for a loan for a house or a loan for a car,” Delgado said.

Low financial literacy often leads to high debt. Across the country and here in South Florida, people are carrying more debt.

A data tool, the Opportunity Atlas, from the U.S. Census Bureau and Opportunity Insights at Harvard University, takes us inside how South Floridians are faring financially in adulthood.

When looking at people born between 1978 and 1985 across all income levels and races, those in Miami-Dade County had some of the highest levels of debt in the state.

In 2020, the average credit card balance was $5,800, and the average student loan balance was around $18,000.

The average credit scores of those growing up in Miami-Dade were lower than the national average.

“I feel like I can better help my kids because I love my mom, but she hasn’t been able to help me because she doesn’t understand that much, but Ms. Delgado was able to help me, and I want to help other people too,” Acosta said.

Delgado can relate to many of her students, who, like her, come from homes where their parents aren’t able to teach them to manage money responsibly.

“My dad was the single breadwinner,” she said. “We were five kids, so it was a lot for my father, so my dad was just work, work, work, work, so he really didn’t have the time or the tools to tell me anything about financing.”

The Opportunity Atlas shows the economic mobility disparities, that 90% of children born in 1940 earned more than their parents, but today only half do.

But it’s classes like Ms. Delgado’s that could go a long way to help bridge the wealth gap.

Acosta and Pierre are already well on their way to a better financial future. At only 16, both are QuickBooks-certified, and they’re not stopping there.

“My long-term goal is definitely to save for a house that’s number one, and I’m already starting to save for college,” Pierre said.