Mayor Brandon Johnson has tried — and so far failed — to sell his corporate head tax by rebranding it as a “community safety surcharge” with $100 million in annual revenue for crime fighting and prevention programs that include summer jobs and mentoring for Black and Hispanic youth.

And yet, in his proposed 2026 budget, the mayor wants to cut funding for one of Chicago’s most successful youth mentoring programs, and change city guidelines to disqualify school-based group counseling programs known as “Becoming a Man” (BAM) and “Working on Womanhood” (WOW).

“It’s devastating. We have 1,400 young people benefiting from programs they get so much out of. Most of them are in the program because they’ve already been exposed to trauma. And we’re risking traumatizing them again by ripping these s

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