Federal guidelines may prevent Lightfoot from using relief money to pay down city debt – Chicago Sun-Times*

The mayor’s financial team had told aldermen that more than half of the $1.9 billion avalanche of federal relief funds on the way to Chicago would be gobbled up by retiring $965 million in scoop-and-toss borrowing used to eliminate the pandemic-induced shortfall. Lightfoot reiterated that promise to investors last week — amid heavy resistance from a City Council hell bent on using that money to address poverty, homelessness, mental health and economic disinvestment.