Mayor Brandon Johnson has canceled police academy classes for this month and next — reneging on his own promise to exempt the Chicago Police and Fire departments from a citywide hiring freeze.And at an emergency Cabinet meeting Tuesday, Chief Operating Officer John Roberson ordered other department heads to identify personnel cuts — beyond reductions already made — and submit proposals by Friday. The goal: $75 million in additional savings in 2025.Each department head will be given a specific budget number to reach in what city officials referred to as an “exercise.”Departments already had been required to cut 3%, but "They’re saying that doesn’t go far enough. They need to find another $75 million,” said someone at the meeting where Roberson lowered the boom — and said the mayor's office expected no support in that effort from unions or City Council members.“The framing of the thing was, 'This is just an exercise. We hope not to have to do any of this,'" the source said. "Someone else described this as a 'break-the-glass exercise.’ They’re talking about it in these emergency terms, and they don’t have a political strategy. They basically said, 'If you get rid of all of the 1,077 vacant positions [in the corporate fund], that doesn’t go far enough.'”Roberson refused to comment on the budget-cutting mandate. The city's budget office said a class of at least 100 recruits will start in December.Johnson is struggling to close a $223 million budget gap by Dec. 31 and erase a $982.4 million shortfall next year, forcing him to consider the property tax increase he campaigned against.He delayed unveiling his 2025 budget by two weeks — until Oct. 30 — to buy time to find solutions. Mayor Brandon Johnson was at Sweet Holy Spirit Church at 8621 S. South Chicago Ave. on Monday to announce the appointment of six new CPS board members after the resignation of seven other members the week before.Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times Canceling police academy classes for at least two months did not sit well with the police union's City Council allies. They noted the Chicago Police Department already is 1,693 officers below its January 2019 level.Between January 2022 and June 2024, the police department processed 28 academy classes, averaging 68 recruits each, over a 30-month period to make up for time lost during the pandemic.“We are short police officers, and we’re having trouble recruiting police officers. So to pull the rug out from under those who were ready to be trained is a big mistake ,” said Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd), Johnson’s hand-picked chair of the Council’s Committee on Public Safety.“If you’re making operating cuts right now, you need to use a scalpel — not a sledgehammer," he said. "And closing the police academy for [at least] two months is akin to using a sledgehammer."Hopkins said his local police district has 300 fewer officers than when he was elected to the Council in 2015. “We went on a recruiting campaign earlier this year trying to present the job of a Chicago police officer as an attractive job to younger people. ... We saw applications increase. To wipe that out by telling people they’re not gonna be trained after they’ve been hired is counterproductive. It’s a waste of money spent in recruiting,” Hopkins said.A police spokesperson referred questions about the decision surrounding the police academy to the mayor's office. The mayor's office then referred the questions to the Office of Budget Management, which hadn't responded by Tuesday evening.Erik Steinmetz, vice president of Chicago Fire Fighters Union Local 2, has seen no indication of a halt in fire department hiring.But, he added, slashing the fire department's budget would be catastrophic.“It is cheaper to pay for safety up front than it is to pay the cost of not being safe,” he said. “And to cut this any more, we’re making things unsafe.”Ald. Marty Quinn (13th) wasn't surprised Johnson "would try to defund the police.""It takes 18 months to have a police officer go through the academy and go through all of the training before they’re on the street," Quinn said. "We can ill afford to lose any time in training officers.“We have a large amount of retirements that are going to be happening. We have to be able to backfill those retirements.”Far South Side Ald. Anthony Beale (9th) said canceling academy classes will have a “huge impact” on crime-fighting."Crime is the No. 1 issue in the city, and we’re playing games with it. ... This administration doesn’t have a clue of what they’re doing.”Johnson initially announced a citywide hiring freeze — then, two days later, exempted the police and fire departments. Related ‘Upon further review,’ police and fire departments exempt from Brandon Johnson’s hiring freeze Mayor Johnson’s budget address pushed back two weeks in face of nearly $1 billion deficit Chicago faces nearly $1 billion 2025 budget hole — will mayor fill it with property tax hike? By shutting down the academy and ordering layoff lists, Johnson may well be playing a game of chicken with the Council.If the alternative is hundreds of layoffs, furlough days and program cuts, Johnson may hope to persuade an increasingly rebellious Council to approve a politically unpalatable property tax increase.“That’s a time-tested political strategy,” Hopkins said. “But it isn’t necessary, and it’s not going to fool anyone. We all understand already that the crisis that we’re in is real, and it’s dire.”It could even backfire. Hopkins said the Council could easily call the mayor’s bluff at a time when 41 of its 50 members — including 13 from the 19-member Progressive Caucus — have signed a letter condemning the mayor's school board power play.“It puts the City Council in a rebellious mood. … Tensions are high. Emotions are running high. This is among the most stressful environments that I’ve seen at City Hall,” Hopkins said. Regardless of the final choices, "it's going to be a challenge to get to 26 votes" — the number needed to pass the budget, he said.Chicago Federation of Labor President Bob Reiter said he had a meeting at City Hall last week to discuss the mayor's budget, where he highlighted ways to balance the budget without impacting services.""We stand ready to collaborate with the mayor's office to identify potential cost savings and progressive revenue solutions that will protect both services and working Chicagoans."Contributing: Tom Schuba Related READ: More coverage of Chicago’s city government in the Sun-Times