Chicago Public Schools are caught between a rock and a hard place. Only one day after releasing a 2025 budget plan that included cuts meant to address a $500,000 budget deficit, Mayor Brandon Johnson rejected the idea of budget cuts altogether.
“I am not going to accept cuts. I’m not,” Johnson said at an unrelated event Thursday afternoon. “That is not what the people of Chicago elected me to do, to cut our school district. I am not going to do it.”
On Wednesday, CPS released a $9.9 billion dollar budget that included $149 million in additional school-level funding over 2024. It also issued a warning, saying "without a significant increase in revenue, our five-year financial outlook shows CPS facing budget deficits of at least half a billion dollars per year.”
Complicating matters even further, CPS is currently engaged in contract negotiations with the Chicago Teachers Union and its new principal’s union. The CTU has shared more than 700 proposals with the district.
“This is about buying new chairs,” said CTU President Stacy Davis Gates, “not just re-arranging the chairs on the deck.”
Although the scope of CTU's demands have not been made public, they are likely to have a significant impact on the CPS budget.
“Clearly there is some tension there between the district and the teachers union at the moment about how much and what exactly the district can afford,” said Mila Koumpilova who covers the Board of Education for Chartbeat.
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Previously CPS and CTU had lobbied together in Springfield for more state money for Chicago schools. The city figures it is owed more than $1 billion under a funding formula dating back to the Rauner administration.
“They owe us that, but they owe Aurora, Elgin, Waukegan, East St. Louis,” Johnson said. “Every single child in this state should not have to compete on whether or not they are going to have access to a quality education.”
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Still, the district did not get what they wanted.
But Johnson, a former CTU member who received major funding from the union during his campaign, said he wants a fully funded education system. How it will be paid for has yet to be decided.
In the past, Johnson has promised no new property taxes, but has not ruled out borrowing or other revenue streams.
The CTU calls the district’s 2025 budget plan shortsighted.
“CPS CEO Martinez’s proposal is not a budget, it’s an act of make-believe," the union said. "It’s the product of a man driving with his hands over his eyes.”
CPS had planned to take up the matter at its July 25 regular meeting.
