Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot looks to earmark nearly $1 billion in federal stimulus to pay off city’s COVID-19 borrowing

Mayor Lori Lightfoot hopes to spend nearly $1 billion in federal COVID-19 relief money to pay off the short term borrowing her administration has used to get through the first two years of the pandemic, the mayor’s finance team told aldermen Wednesday. And much of the rest of Chicago’s expected $2 billion cut of the relief package could also go to covering a yawning hole in next year’s budget.