Wanted: Finance chief with experience managing a multibillion-dollar budget, turning around sagging credit ratings and navigating the complexities of building and paying for giant infrastructure projects.
That could be the job description for the next CFO of Chicago, which will soon be without one. Crain’s Chicago Business reported Tuesday that the city’s current finance chief Jill Jaworski is stepping down for a similar role at Navy Pier Inc., the nonprofit that runs the city’s famed downtown tourist destination on Lake Michigan.
Jaworski, who was appointed CFO of America’s third-largest city in May 2023, will begin her new position as chief financial and administrative officer at Navy Pier on Feb. 2, according to a news release issued by the nonprofit on Tuesday.
She’s leaving her role at the city after an acrimonious budget battle between Mayor Brandon Johnson’s office and city council members. The city approved a $16.6 billion budget for 2026 in late December, rejecting calls for a corporate head tax and other proposals from Johnson. According to Crain’s, Johnson neither signed nor vetoed the budget, which means it took effect by default.
Jaworski told Crain’s she made the decision to accept the job with Navy Pier near year’s end but opted to stay on board through the city’s budgeting process. “I did delay in order to get through the budget and allow an appropriate time for the mayor’s office to be able to transition my position,” she told the business newspaper.
Jaworski went on to say that she’s “very confident the city will be able to deal with the structural imbalance,” Crain’s reported.
During her time in office, Jaworski was outspoken about Illinois’ regressive tax structure, describing it in May as the “crime of the century.”
Also under Jaworski’s tenure, S&P Global Ratings downgraded Chicago’s credit rating from stable to negative. “We could revise the outlook to stable if the city makes sufficient progress identifying and implementing recurring revenue or expenditure reductions to substantially reduce its chronic reliance on short-term budgetary fixes, while stabilizing pension funding levels by sustainably narrowing the gap between current proposed contribution levels and those prescribed by its advance pension funding policy,” the firm wrote at the time.
When Chicago will name a new CFO isn’t immediately clear. Bloomberg, which described Jaworski’s departure as a “surprise,” reported Wednesday that Mayor Johnson is confident the city will be able to find a replacement. He also warned the city could face layoffs by the middle of the year over budget concerns, the news agency reported.
Certainly, it’s not an easy or popular job to serve as a municipal CFO these days, especially given the fact that 20 of the United States’ 25 biggest cities are facing budget gaps in 2026.
Meanwhile, over at Navy Pier, which says it welcomes about nine million guests a year, Jaworski will have a considerably smaller budget to manage than she did at the city of Chicago. In 2024, for instance, Navy Pier recorded revenue of $74.5 million and expenses of $78.3 million, according to the organization’s 990 tax filings.
Still, Jaworski will be tasked with “securing the long-term financial stability necessary to support and sustain” several initiatives in the year ahead, including plans to redesign its east end facilities, Navy Pier officials said in the Tuesday release.
In an email to CFO.com on Wednesday, Navy Pier President and CEO Marilynn Gardner noted that Jaworski “has spent decades navigating complex financial environments closely tied to Chicago’s economic landscape.”
“Her background in investment banking, municipal advisory work and the public sector has shaped how she leads, grounding her work in disciplined risk management, long-term strategic planning and organizational stewardship,” Gardner said.
One of Jaworski’s first steps as CFO will be to “gain a deep understanding of how Navy Pier operates today, including our revenue sources, cost structure and the realities of running a destination of this scale without ongoing public funding,” Gardner added.
