Mayor Brandon Johnson is now offering to eliminate a revised $68.5 million property tax increase and cut 10 jobs from the mayor’s office in hopes of ending Chicago’s marathon budget stalemate.

With just over two weeks to go before the Dec. 31 deadline that would trigger an unprecedented government shutdown, the Johnson administration spent Sunday briefing small groups of alderpersons on his latest offer.

It calls for:

• The twice-revised $68.5 million property tax increase to be eliminated altogether.

• Skipping a $40 million payment on a loan taken out to buy the site of the since-demolished Michael Reese Hospital. That land was to be used for an Olympic village had Chicago landed the 2016 Summer Games.

• $10 million in “cost recovery” by charging organizers of “ticketed events” for police and traffic services. Over the years, the city has attempted to recover costs from professional sports teams but failed miserably.

• $5 million in unspecified energy savings.

• $8 million in public safety cuts, presumably by eliminating police vacancies.

• $1 million in savings by eliminated 10 jobs from his own office budget. The mayor’s office budget has ballooned under Johnson and his predecessor, Lori Lightfoot.

• $2.8 million in savings by putting the city’s bloated bureaucracy on a diet by eliminating middle-management jobs in city departments, including deputy commissioners and their assistants.

The mayor still appears to be resisting any layoffs or furlough days.

Johnson’s original proposal of a $300 million tax hike was unanimously rejected by the City Council. The mayor’s subsequent offers to cut the increase in half — to $150 million — then settle for $68.5 million also fell at least seven votes short of the 26 required for passage.

It’s not at all clear whether the embattled mayor’s latest offer will be enough to get his $17.3 billion budget over the finish line.

Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd), Johnson’s hand-picked Public Safety Committee Chair, characterized the proposal as “tinkering at the margins.”

Hopkins said he doesn’t trust the sources of revenue Johnson hopes to use to replace the $68.5 million property tax levy.

He was particularly troubled by skipping the Reese payment, given that the budget already is precariously balanced with one-time revenues, including savings generated by a massive refinancing.

“We’ll be downgraded for that,” Hopkins said, referring to the all-important bond rating that determines city borrowing costs.

In a text message to the Sun-Times, Progressive Caucus Co-Chair Andre Vasquez (40th) said skipping the Reese payment could cost the city several million dollars.

Skipping a Reese payment is “crying uncle,” Hopkins said. “That’s just admitting that we are out of ideas.”

Johnson deserves credit for “doing one thing we asked him to do” by holding the line on property taxes as he promised to do during the mayoral campaign. But that “doesn’t automatically mean” he is prepared to support a budget that still includes “very little cutting,” Hopkins said.

“This is barely denting the surface” of a city budget that has at least 30 percent more full-time employees than it did pre-pandemic, he said. “We have loaded up this city with more new employees — and they’re everywhere. Many of them were funded with ARPA funds. The ARPA funds are gone. We cannot bake them into the budget going forward. It’s not sustainable.”

Southwest Side Ald. Marty Quinn (13th), one of the mayor’s most outspoken Council critics, said the mayor’s latest offer doesn’t “do enough to get the structure right” in preparation for even bigger shortfalls next year and the year after.

“We have to continue to press the envelope on right-sizing,” Quinn said.

“As a Council, we’re just scratching the surface to gain our independence. Let’s continue to push the envelope. We’re solidifying ourselves as co-equal.”