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Chicago Tribune
3 days ago
- Business
- Chicago Tribune
Mayor Brandon Johnson-aligned school board members balk at CPS budget plan that sidesteps city pension payment, borrowing
Despite the presentation of a balanced budget containing no loan for the upcoming Chicago Public Schools academic year after months of debates over a multi-million dollar budget deficit, the entirety of the Chicago Board of Education is not sold on the $10.25 billion plan. The proposal was the result of weeks of planning and bolstered by community engagement. It combines cuts to expenditures — that avoid cuts to classrooms — with input from outside partners such as the city and state, according to the district's Chief Budget Officer Mike Sitkowski, who presented the plan to the school board at their bi-monthly meeting Wednesday. Notably, it balances the budget without a $200 million borrowing scenario or a $175 million pension reimbursement to the city, as proposed by Mayor Brandon Johnson. Interim CPS CEO Macquline King drew attention in recent days for pushing back on Johnson's proposals to rely on borrowing and make the pension payment. King took over in June as the district was confronting a $734 million budget crisis in the wake of leadership upheaval. Just days earlier, the former schools chief Pedro Martinez had left the district for a new job in Massachusetts after a protracted public disagreement with Johnson about how to balance last year's budget, which ultimately cost him his job. The interim CEO stepped into the role with two immediate priorities: settling the budget and ensuring a smooth start to the school year. While King, a former city employee, has taken a stance against Johnson, it remains unclear if the board will follow suit. And it remains to be seen how her relationship with Johnson will fare in light of the budget reveal. A majority of the 21-member hybrid board members are Johnson-aligned, meaning they have significant sway over the final vote on a budget, which requires a simple majority, or 11 members to vote in favor. During the meeting, while some Johnson-aligned members recognized the blood, sweat and tears that Sitkowski put into the proposal, they also expressed consternation about its potential to rupture relationships with City Hall. Meanwhile, several elected board members backed the proposal, saying it puts students first. Sitkowski maintained that this year's plan, in agreement with King's approach, stays away from dangerous borrowing and helps the district in the long term, significantly decreasing the projected budget deficit in the next five years. He emphasized that the proposal fulfills all labor commitments as outlined in a new teachers contract finalized this spring — upholding promises to teachers' wages, class sizes and bilingual education support. It also offers protections to principals in their recently approved contract, he added. He assured board members that he 'reviewed every line' to identify all cost-saving measures, such as cutting the CPS' central office budget by $50 million. He laid out a variety of strategies to ensure the most money would be funneled to the district, including using $65 million in one-time resources from the district's debt stabilization fund, which is designed to account for debt expenditures. The plan also saves $29 million by repurposing existing state and federal dollars, he said. 'This budget is designed to avoid the possibility of mid-year cuts. We're confident that it does that,' Sitkowski said. 'We also want to make good on this commitment, and work with our partners at the city, at the state level, on every level of government to continue to address these shared obligations that we don't, as a city, have the resources to currently address.' He stressed that the city's $200 million borrowing plan would substantially hurt CPS' credit rating, as occurred during borrowing in the 2010s. 'We are now paying nearly $200 million per year for this crisis debt,' Sitkowski said, lamenting the previous borrowing undertaken by CPS. 'If we had access to this funding or our classrooms, rather than to pay off this debt, we could hire at least 2,000 additional teachers.' The question of whether CPS accepts responsibility for a pension payment previously covered by the city took up a large amount of discussion at Wednesday's board meeting. It is the city's responsibility to pay into the municipal pension, even though over half of the pensioners are CPS nonteaching staff, such as support staff and central office employees. The city covered the costs of the pension until 2021, when it shifted to the district under former Mayor Lori Lightfoot. The district's proposal does not to commit to the pension payment, keeping the option open contingent on additional resources from the city and state. That is different from last year, when a budget was settled without leaving that option open, meaning a budget amendment was required to make the pension payment. This March, the board postponed a vote on a budget amendment to engage in borrowing when it was clear it didn't have sufficient votes. The city ultimately took on the costs of the payment. The partly-elected, partly-appointed board needs a supermajority — 14 out of 21 votes — to pass a budget amendment, but just a simple majority to pass the budget. Sitkowski isn't ruling out making the payment, but rather saying that CPS needs extra money from outside partners. That means this year, compared to in March, it just needs a simple majority to pass, Sitkowski said. The proposal relies on an extra $79 million from special tax increment financing districts, called TIF, an economic development fund that collects taxpayer money to be used for special projects by aldermen in their districts. CPS received $300 million in TIF funding last year and expects to get more this year, according to Sitkowski. But the district needs even more money from TIF, and potentially from the state, in order to make the pension payment, Sitkowski said. Aldermen have publicly stated that they won't vote to allocate their extra TIF dollars to the district if CPS does not agree to make the pension payment. But they also need their chunk of that money to balance a challenging city budget come this fall. Board member Michilla Blaise, who represents District 5B on the West Side and was appointed by the mayor, advocated for completing the pension payment to maintain a collaborative relationship with the city, noting that the district had already made a misstep by not making the payment last fiscal year. She questioned why the city would allocate TIF funding to the district without a promise of a pension payment. 'We have to be good partners. We have to collaborate. And if we're going to act like we don't care about the city budget, why should they care about ours?' she asked. Meanwhile, elected board member Carlos Rivas, who represents District 3B on the Northwest Side, pushed back on the idea that the city might withhold TIF funding without the promise of a pension payment, since the city allocates a TIF surplus each year. He said he expects another record surplus. 'There is no mechanism right now to give us less TIF money because they're mad at us,' Rivas said. King remained stoic for most of the meeting, chiming in only when directly asked to confirm that she hasn't 'had any conversation to date about specific dollars in City Council.' Two top aides to Johnson, including Kennedy Bartley, the mayor's chief of external affairs, and Jason Lee, Johnson's senior adviser, were also at the meeting Wednesday. Lee spoke to board members during a recess, according to city spokesman Cassio Mendoza. While CPS is a large city agency and the budget is of high importance to the mayor's office, it is unusual to see a high level delegation from the mayor's office at a school board meeting. The city did not respond immediately to a request for further comment. The district's shortfall ultimately stems far beyond current relationships with aldermen. It is the result of years of aggressive borrowing, chronically underfunded pension obligations and ongoing budget gaps. At the same time, federal pandemic relief funding — which had previously bolstered student performance in math and literacy — expired in late 2024. And adding to the uncertainty are potential cuts proposed by the Trump administration to eliminate nearly 16% of the resources relied upon by many CPS families, according to a district presentation from a budget briefing with city officials, CPS and other stakeholders on Tuesday. In talks about the deficit, CPS officials have repeatedly cited data showing that the district is missing $1.6 billion in funding from the state, despite a recent $45 million allocation. Board member Anusha Thotakura, who was appointed by the mayor and represents District 6A on the South Side, emphasized that relationships between board members and state officials will be vital moving forward. 'The only thing, aside from money falling out of the sky, that can help us close that gap is us in this room, and our partners, being serious about advocating for revenue,' Thotakura said. For weeks, district leaders have been working closely to determine the best way to address the massive gap. They've already made cuts, trying to keep the reductions as far away from the classroom as possible. So far, that has meant restructuring of the special education department, cuts to custodial staff and hot lunches, among other measures. Before the meeting, dozens of workers and community members dressed in matching purple Service Employees International Union Local 1 shirts gathered outside the CPS headquarters to criticize the recent layoffs of hundreds of custodians. They advocated for the district to ensure no more reductions will be made to custodial staffing moving forward. SEIU Local 1 Vice President Greg King called the layoffs a failure of CPS and city leadership. 'Parents will be worried whether their kids are in a healthy environment or a safe environment. Our community has lost trust,' King said. 'Our students deserve to be safe and in a clean classroom, and our custodians deserve respect, and I'm going to say this, stop balancing your missed budget off the backs of our Black and brown kids.'
Chicago Tribune
07-08-2025
- Business
- Chicago Tribune
Afternoon Briefing: Trump offers $50,000 bonuses to hire thousands for ICE push
Good afternoon, Chicago. Despite Mayor Brandon Johnson's office saying it was not pursuing controversial changes to the Chicago Board of Education's voting procedures, his top Springfield lobbyist emailed a state official in the closing days of the spring legislative session expressing interest in a bill that would do just that. In a May 23 message, city lobbyist John Arena wrote to a state education official that the city wanted legislation to align the Chicago board's rules with those governing other school boards around the state. That would have included a provision to lower from a two-thirds supermajority to a simple majority the threshold the Chicago Public Schools board would need to approve certain issues — and ease the path for adopting contentious borrowing plans favored by City Hall. Here's what else is happening today. And remember, for the latest breaking news in Chicago, visit and sign up to get our alerts on all your devices. Subscribe to more newsletters | Asking Eric | Horoscopes | Puzzles & Games | Today in History Texas Republican U.S. Sen. John Cornyn said today the FBI has granted his request to assist Texas law enforcement in locating House Democrats who fled the state, setting up a potential confrontation with Illinois Democratic officials who have vowed to protect them. Read more here. More top news stories: Just after midnight, goods from more than 60 countries and the European Union became subject to tariff rates of 10% or higher. Read more here. More top business stories: The Bears open their preseason schedule against the Miami Dolphins at noon Sunday at Soldier Field, the first of three games before the Sept. 9 regular-season opener against the Minnesota Vikings on 'Monday Night Football.' Read more here. More top sports stories: Since 2022, Zhen Jinling has spent Saturday and Sunday afternoons busking outside Wentworth and Archer avenues. Rotating between several instruments, Zhen shares a taste of traditional Chinese music with locals and visitors alike. Read more here. More top Eat. Watch. Do. stories: The Trump administration is ramping up a massive hiring spree at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, offering up to $50,000 signing bonuses, waiving age limits and invoking wartime-style imagery in a bid to lure thousands of new officers. Read more here. More top stories from around the world:
Chicago Tribune
25-07-2025
- Business
- Chicago Tribune
Editorial: With a month to go before CPS must approve a budget, leaders' lack of seriousness is on display
When can a budget crisis not fairly be called a crisis? Perhaps when the crisis is something that's been obviously coming for months, if not years, and demanded action long ago. Members of the Chicago Board of Education appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson, as well as the interim Chicago Public Schools CEO hired out of Johnson's administration, are calling for Gov. JB Pritzker to order a special session of the legislature to bail out a district facing what it says is a $734 million budget hole for the coming school year. The requests for the special session came this week, a little over a month before the Aug. 28 deadline for the school board to finalize its budget. Needless to say, there won't be a special session. Pritzker and the Democratic leaders of both the House and Senate have made it clear repeatedly that the state itself is tapped out and can't furnish hundreds of millions to bail out CPS. That school board President Sean Harden, who serves as the mayor's chief CPS mouthpiece, would seek a special session at this late stage is revealing of how unserious Johnson and his allies are about properly managing a system that by any measure is tremendously bloated. The time for legislative sessions, special or otherwise, was months and months ago. The mayor, in fact, didn't include a CPS bailout among his requests for help from Springfield in the past spring session — precisely because he knew it would go nowhere and might jeopardize his other asks. So, as Johnson has demanded in vain for over a year, Harden and other mayoral allies on the board once again are talking about taking on hundreds of millions more in high-priced debt just to get through the next school year without having to make meaningful budget cuts. And, unlike in the spring, when a minority of school board members took advantage of a supermajority requirement for budget amendments and rejected Harden's request for authority to go deeper into debt, this time around Harden needs only a simple majority to add more liabilities to the balance sheet of the nation's largest municipal junk-bond issuer. Meeting that threshold likely won't be a problem. Eleven of 21 board members are Johnson appointees. Of the 10 elected in November, seven consistently have resisted Johnson and Harden's reckless financial maneuvers to date. But that's not enough opposition to stop CPS from lurching substantially further toward insolvency if Harden and interim school Superintendent Macquline King choose that route. For CPS, there's a short-term issue and there's a long-term issue. Both should concern every Chicagoan. Over the longer haul, the district will have to consolidate a large number of schools and rationalize its workforce. As it stands, CPS is sized for a student population far larger than the 325,000 actually attending Chicago's public schools today. We will have more to say on that larger matter later. The short-term problem — next year's shortfall — can be addressed in part by forcing the city of Chicago to pay the $175 million Mayor Johnson has insisted CPS should shoulder for the Municipal Employees' Annuity and Benefit Fund, a pension fund serving nonteaching employees of CPS, as well as some workers for the city and other agencies. By state law, that pension plan is the city's obligation, but Johnson and his predecessor, Lori Lightfoot, strived to get CPS to take on some of the plan's funding responsibility. CPS did so in years when it was flush with federal pandemic cash, but refused to do so last year so that it could pay for teacher raises negotiated as part of a new four-year collective bargaining agreement. Given the district's financial strains, there's no good reason to float junk-rated debt to cover that cost now, especially when not obligated by law. So without the $175 million pension payment, the true deficit should be more like $559 million. That's not a small amount to cut, even in a budget well exceeding $9 billion. But, still. This predicament could be seen a mile away, and Johnson — backed by his former employer and erstwhile ally, the Chicago Teachers Union — has insisted since taking office on generous yearly raises for teachers who already are among the nation's highest-paid while also opposing the consolidation of any schools and associated job reductions. About a third of CPS schools are at less than half of student capacity, and many are at a third or lower. The CTU/Johnson strategy from the beginning has been to do next to nothing about a foreseeably dire budget situation — in fact, make it significantly worse — and wait until the crisis got so acute that the state or some other benefactor would swoop in to the rescue. That's fiscal and managerial malfeasance. Why should it be rewarded? Oh, yes. The children. Perhaps the most pernicious facet of this game-of-chicken strategizing is that hundreds of thousands of Chicago students rely on CPS, and the city's future depends in no small part on giving those kids a good education. By now, a majority of Chicagoans have caught on to CTU's true purpose, which is to bolster its membership ranks no matter how low CPS' student population drops. That doesn't stop union leaders, of course, from attempting to paint those who reject the never-ending requests for hundreds of millions or even billions in tax increases as cold-hearted opponents of educating Chicago's kids. But the rhetoric increasingly doesn't land, especially given how CTU's very own former organizer sits on the fifth floor. We feel terrible for the families who will bear the brunt of the likely cutbacks to come. But this challenging upcoming school year unfortunately is the price we will have to pay for epic mismanagement. Once they see no knight in shining armor coming to the rescue, these unserious people tasked with running our schools finally must take some accountability and begin the process of making difficult decisions about the future of CPS within the means available to support it.
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
School board picks Macquline King as interim CPS chief
The Chicago Board of Education on Wednesday approved Macquline King as interim schools chief, replacing outgoing CEO Pedro Martinez as the search for a permanent leader continues. The board approved the resolution 11-8, with one abstention. At Wednesday's meeting, Chicago Public Schools' parents and community members emphasized the urgency of the decision for the interim post, as the school district faces a $529 million deficit in fiscal year 2026, which begins July 1. King's appointment follows a nearly yearlong power struggle between Martinez and Mayor Brandon Johnson over a borrowing plan to balance the budget for the school year that ends Thursday. The parties disagreed over whether to take out a $300 million loan to cover expenses for a new teachers' contract and a payment to a pension fund for non-teaching CPS employees. Martinez was fired in December. He's taken a new job as the new commissioner of elementary and secondary education in Massachusetts. As Chicago's senior director of educational policy, King was the only candidate of the three finalists who currently works with the city. Last week, allegations of negligence from her time as principal of a school in Uptown surfaced in her background, according to documents obtained by the Tribune through the Freedom of Information Act. The other candidates, Alfonso Carmona and Nicole Milberg, are both currently CPS chiefs. Asked Wednesday about the possibility King would be the board's choice, Johnson declined to discuss particular candidates, but said whoever the board chooses 'has to be someone that reflects the values that I've fought for my entire education career, that's the thing that's most important here.' 'My values are, we have to have a school district that works for every single child,' Johnson said at a City Hall news conference. And he said board members went through a 'very thorough process' to decide who to put into the interim post. A day before King's appointment, the Chicago Westside Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People sent a letter to board President Sean Harden, requesting board members 'hire a Black person who is a qualified Educator' for both the interim and permanent roles. The Tribune obtained a copy of the letter. Karl Brinson, president of the branch, said the organization had come to its recommendation 'based on past harm to Black families caused by past CEOs' and the 'taking away of resources' that led to the displacement of Black communities in Chicago. Neither branch representatives nor Harden responded to the Tribune's request for comment. Next year's budgets for each of the district's more than 600 schools were released in mid-May with the assumption that CPS would receive $300 million in additional money from the city and state. Without additional funding, school principals are still planning for hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts and are making difficult decisions about which programs and positions to eliminate. District officials have stated that if the $300 million doesn't materialize, they will be forced to pursue even more drastic cost-saving measures. The state did not allocate additional funding to the large, historically underfunded school district in early June. That means the relationships with the city will be important in upcoming budget talks. Wednesday's meeting also provided board members the opportunity to discuss items that will be voted on at the board meeting later this month. Board members talked about new contracts to be approved for youth mental health services, building and projects, as well as a green schools resolution being introduced by Anusha Thotakura, whose school board district encompasses neighborhoods downtown and just south of those commercial areas. Multiple community members stepped forward to express concerns about the challenging financial situation ahead. 'In my neighborhood, many of our children, including my goddaughter, suffer from asthma,' said Robin Moore, president of the board of governors at Carver Military Academy High School on the Far South Side. 'We in the community … have to choose between investing in our building or investing in programs.' Chicago Tribune's Alice Yin contributed.
Chicago Tribune
11-06-2025
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
School board picks Macquline King to lead CPS temporarily in face of deficit
The Chicago Board of Education on Wednesday approved Macquline King as interim schools chief, replacing outgoing CEO Pedro Martinez as the search for a permanent leader continues. The board passed the resolution 11-8, with one abstention. At Wednesday's meeting, Chicago Public Schools' parents and community members emphasized the urgency of the decision for the interim post, as the school district faces a $529 million deficit in fiscal year 2026, which begins on July 1. King's appointment follows a nearly year-long power struggle between Martinez and Mayor Brandon Johnson over a borrowing plan to balance the budget for the school year that ends tomorrow. The parties disagreed over whether to take out a $300 million loan to cover expenses for a new teachers' contract and a payment to a pension fund for non-teaching CPS employees. Martinez was fired in December. He's taken a new job as the new commissioner of elementary and secondary education in Massachusetts. As Chicago's senior director of educational policy, King was the only candidate of the final three under consideration who currently works with the city. Last week, allegations of negligence from her time as principal of a school in Uptown surfaced in her background, according to documents obtained by the Tribune through the Freedom of Information Act. The other candidates, Alfonso Carmona and Nicole Milberg, are both currently CPS chiefs. Asked Wednesday about the possibility King would be the board's choice, Johnson declined to discuss particular candidates, but said whoever the board chose 'has to be someone that reflects the values that I've fought for my entire education career, that's the thing that's most important here.' 'My values are, we have to have a school district that works for every single child,' Johnson said at a City Hall news conference. And he said board members went through a 'very thorough process' to decide who to put into the interim post. A day before King's appointment, the Chicago Westside branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People sent a letter to Harden, requesting board members 'hire a Black person who is a qualified Educator' for both the interim and permanent roles. The Tribune obtained a copy of the letter. Karl Brinson, president of the branch, said the organization had come to its recommendation 'based on past harm to Black families caused by past CEOs' and the 'taking away of resources' that led to the displacement of Black communities in Chicago. Neither the branch nor Harden responded to the Tribune's request for comment. Next year's budgets for each of the district's more than 600 schools were released in mid-May with the assumption that CPS would receive $300 million in additional money from the city and state. Without additional funding, school principals are still planning for hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts and are already making difficult decisions about which programs and positions to eliminate. District officials have stated that if the $300 million doesn't materialize, they will be forced to pursue even more drastic cost-saving measures. The state did not allocate additional funding to the large, historically underfunded school district in early June. That means the relationships with the city will be important in upcoming budget talks. Wednesday's meeting also provided board members the opportunity to discuss items that will be voted on at the board meeting later this month. Board members talked about new contracts to be approved for youth mental health services, building and projects, as well as a green schools resolution being introduced by Anusha Thotakura, whose school board district encompasses neighborhoods downtown and just south of those commercial areas. Multiple community members stepped forward to express their concerns about the challenging financial situation ahead in the coming weeks and months. 'In my neighborhood, many of our children, including my goddaughter, suffer from asthma,' said Robin Moore, president of the board of governors at Carver Military Academy High School on the far South Side. 'We in the community … have to choose between investing in our building or investing in programs.'
