As Chicago Public Schools attempts to eliminate a looming $505 million deficit and pass its proposed $9.9 billion budget for the coming school year, the district, the Chicago Teachers Union and education advocates presented competing priorities – and found some consensus – at public comment hearings Tuesday and Wednesday.
With an impending budget vote on the horizon, CPS said it would eliminate its budget shortfall by introducing cuts to academic and operational departments, identifying grants for additional funding and restructuring some of their debt in order to eliminate the deficit, while maintaining their goal of making funding more equitable across the district for the coming school year.
Following this week’s discussion and public comment period, the Chicago Board of Education is expected to vote on the budget at its next meeting on July 25.
At the hearings, the district presented a united front with Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration over the recently proposed equitable funding formula, a new method for distributing funds that will increase resources in schools with high percentages of poor and vulnerable students, guarantee a minimum number of teachers in core subjects and support staff in all of its more than 600 schools, and reduce the student-to-teacher ratio.
“This isn’t just Mayor Johnson’s north star,” Chicago Board of Education President Jianan Shi said Tuesday about the new funding formula. “It’s all of our north stars.”
But while CPS defended its budget at the hearings, citing a shared goal with the mayoral administration, generating support for the details comes at a moment of tension between key players, among them the Board of Education, CTU, Mayor Johnson’s administration and education interest groups.
For example, in a recent break from the district Mayor Johnson signaled that increased costs beyond what is outlined in the proposed budget may be necessary to avoid staffing cuts. The Johnson administration has suggested a plan for CPS to take out a loan of up to $300 million to pay for increased salary and pension costs, an idea which the district pushed back on, first reported by Chalkbeat.
The district and CTU, who are negotiating a new 4-year contract, have been at odds over this year’s budget since it was released on July 10.
During both hearings, CPS Chief Budget Officer Mike Sitkowski outlined the budget breakdown for the coming year, which includes $8.4 billion in day-to-day expenses, $611 million for investing in buildings and infrastructure projects and $817 million to pay for principal and interest on bonds issued to fund its capital projects.
CPS said the proposed budget closes the $505 million deficit for the time being. However, it does not account for a salary increase for CPS teachers being negotiated by CTU. In a press release, the district said it “anticipates amending the budget at a later date to reflect the cost of these agreements.”
CPS also opened the floor for public comment at both hearings. With board members and some chief CPS staff in attendance – and others, like CPS CEO Pedro Martinez, absent – the district heard from community members about their concerns.
CTU, representing roughly half of the public commenters, criticized the recent layoffs of school staff such as teacher assistants, librarians and restorative justice coordinators, pointing to vacancies across the district.
Jude Abangan, a bilingual special education teacher at Roosevelt High School who was recently laid off, spoke at Tuesday’s meeting about the effects of the cuts on his school.
“This decision not only affects our ability to support students in the classroom, but also diminishes our broader school community, like my involvement in the [local school council],” Abangan said, adding because of the layoffs, 17 classes are without teachers at Roosevelt.
CTU also advocated for smaller class sizes in bilingual and special education classrooms, greater funding for facilities projects, and new revenue sources, particularly increased funding from the state.
Just before Tuesday’s hearings, CTU rallied outside Governor J.B. Pritzker’s Chicago office to demand state funding for investment in CPS. With Mayor Brandon Johnson in their corner, CTU is requesting greater support from Pritzker’s administration.
“You [Gov. Pritzker] can be a hero,” said special education teacher Amaziah Burton, who spoke at the CTU rally. “We have an ally with our mayor, Brandon Johnson.”
CTU has not been the only critic of the proposed budget.
Charter school advocates spoke at the Tuesday meeting, requesting a larger allocation to provide services for their “changing demographics.” according to Yesica Rufino, director of charter school growth and support at the Illinois Network of Charter Schools. “We are welcoming an increasing number of multilingual learners from many different countries to bring a rich cultural diversity into our classrooms.
The 2024-25 budget includes $42 million in “statutorily-driven funding increases to charter schools,” according to a CPS press release, but advocates like Rufino are arguing that this increase is not enough.
“Despite the progress, current resources still fall short of what is necessary to support our multilingual learners,” Rufino said.
Charter school activists also raised concerns about infrastructure in their schools.
“We spend a lot of our time fundraising to meet our budget gaps and spending those dollars, particularly on facilities, particularly in our south Chicago location,”said Isaac Palmer, COO of the LEARN Charter Network. “We spend a lot of time just mandating external facilities to get into the condition that we can educate students in.”
However, support for charter schools was met with backlash at Wednesday’s meeting.
Megan Pietz, an English Teacher at the Chicago High School for the Arts, said mismanagement of charter schools like hers has contributed to the loss of teaching positions.
“CPS has a responsibility to hold disorganized and irresponsible charter operators accountable when they fail to support the school community,” Pietz said.
Beyond the expenses themselves, the district and CTU united around finding additional revenue sources, most notably from the state. At its rally, CTU called on the governor to provide greater funding to CPS, a concern that CPS reiterated in this week’s hearings.
“It bears repeating that we are $1.1 billion underfunded based on what the state says CPS needs to be adequately funded by the district,” Sitkowski said at Tuesday’s hearing. “We face $662 million in costs that no other district [in Illinois] faces to fund important investments in our teacher pensions.”
However, even $1.1 billion from the state would be insufficient to accomplish the capital investments, reduction in class sizes, staff hires, and other requests suggested by community members at this week’s meetings, Board Vice President Elizabeth Todd-Breland said Tuesday. Providing the “not just adequate, but excellent education” CPS students deserve will cost well above $1.1 billion, she said.
“We get what we get, and we have to divide it up,” Todd-Breland said. “But the pie’s not big enough.”
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