Mayor Brandon Johnson’s budget director is leaving, the latest shakeup of his administration’s finance team ahead of what is sure to be a grueling budget season.
Annette Guzman, Johnson’s director of the Office of Budget and Management, is departing the role she has held since the start of his administration. Her exit follows the resignations last week of acting Chief Financial Officer Steve Mahr and Deputy CFO Noor Shaikh in June — coming after CFO Jill Jaworski departed at the beginning of this year.
“Ten years of public service, at the City and at Cook County, has been the greatest honor of my career,” Guzman wrote in a statement released by the mayor’s office Monday evening. “During my tenure as City Budget Director, I am proud of the work we have accomplished to strengthen the City’s financial foundation and help ensure resources are aligned with the needs of working families and communities across Chicago.”
In the same statement, Johnson said Guzman was “taking time away from her role to focus on caring for her family.”
“Over the last several years, we have navigated some of the most significant fiscal challenges in Chicago’s history while continuing to deliver for residents across our City,” Johnson wrote. “Annette has been an important part of that work, working alongside our budget team and ensuring we are prepared for the budget process ahead.”
Guzman’s deputy Jonathan Ernst, a highly respected veteran of the city’s budget office, will serve as acting budget director through the 2027 budget season.
Still, the resignation comes with just weeks before Johnson introduces that budget, his fourth, which will also have to address a likely large 2027 deficit. It’ll also occur in the middle of the mayoral election season and with two of the three posts on his finance leadership team now without a permanent leader.
Guzman was also one of the last remaining cabinet members who joined Johnson’s administration at the start of his term. She followed Johnson from Cook County government, where she served as Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s budget director, to the mayor’s office in May 2023. During her tenure, she oversaw a series of increasingly tense budgets, culminating in a full-blown rebellion from aldermen during the most recent cycle that led to the City Council passing a budget over the mayor’s objections for the first time in 40 years.
Throughout that process, Guzman pushed back against Johnson’s emboldened foes, arguing that their projections were inaccurate and would worsen the city’s financial standing once revenue failed to come in at predicted levels.
That spending plan is now facing problems well into 2026. Guzman recently briefed aldermen that the city could face layoffs if a projected $90 million deficit materializes by year’s end. The city has so far been unable to commit to the second half of an advance pension payment because of property tax delays from Cook County. The aldermanic opposition has countered that Johnson’s administration is sabotaging the budget it passed against his will.
The first key finance leader to leave Johnson’s administration was Chasse Rehwinkel, who resigned as the city’s comptroller in December 2024 to become Devon Bank’s chief financial officer. Michael Belsky replaced him as comptroller in July 2025 and remains in the post. The city’s debt manager, Brendan White, has taken over as acting CFO.