Dozens of aldermen called for a special meeting to vote down the mayor's proposed $300 million property tax increase.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has a month and a half to get a new city budget passed, but he’s back to the drawing board after a $300 million property tax hike was rejected.

The 29 council members who asked for the meeting are critical of Mayor Brandon Johnson’s plan to close a gaping budget hole next year in part by raising property taxes.

Mayor Brandon Johnson is all but giving up on his proposed $300 million property tax hike before aldermen kill it, and pushing them to find other revenue in its place to avert layoffs. Johnson’s administration is combing over alternatives to the tax jump ahead of a meeting Wednesday where the City Council is expected to vote it down.

Mayor Brandon Johnson is vowing to work with City Council members who are dead set on lowering or eliminating the property tax increase he has proposed.

Twenty-two of the City Council’s 50 members met Saturday with top mayoral aides, including Johnson’s budget team, to begin negotiations that, some alderpersons said, should have started long before Johnson belatedly introduced his $17.