The majority of the Chicago Board of Education is demanding the school district’s budget include a controversial $175 million municipal pension payment and a loan to cover costs.
Eleven of 21 members sent a letter to interim CEO/Supt. Macquline King saying these two items need to be in the budget for the upcoming school year.
It comes a day after King’s staff presented their budget proposal and touted that they were able to close a $734 million budget deficit without a loan. The budget proposal included the municipal pension payment, but made it contingent on the state or the city sending the school district more than it is anticipating in the budget.
The signees want CPS to commit to covering the municipal pension payment and allowing for a loan so they can take on debt if needed without having to separately vote for a loan via a budget amendment. The budget only needs a simple majority vote to be approved, but any amendments to the budget need approval by two-thirds of the board members.
Nine of the 11 members who signed the letter were appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson. One of Johnson’s 10 appointees recently resigned and his seat has yet to be filled. It was not signed by Board President Sean Harden, who was appointed by Johnson and only votes in a tie.
The other two signees — Ebony DeBerry and Jitu Brown — were elected but were endorsed by the Chicago Teachers Union, which backed Johnson. However, two members endorsed by the CTU — Jennifer Custer and Yesenia Lopez — did not sign the letter.
The board members who signed the letter called it a “critical change” that they wanted in the budget proposal before it was posted publicly by Chicago Public Schools leaders on Wednesday. But the budget was posted without these changes.
The board is scheduled to vote on the budget on Aug. 28.
King has yet to comment on the letter. She also didn’t speak during the budget presentation in front of the board Wednesday. King came from the mayor’s office to take over in June after former CEO Pedro Martinez was fired, at least in part because he refused to take out a loan or make the municipal pension payment, which covers CPS non-teaching staff.
Several of the board members who signed the letter expressed concern that the budget proposal was unrealistic. To balance the budget, CPS is counting on getting $379 million through a process controlled by the city and City Council members. That process takes money set aside for economic development projects out of special taxing districts called TIFs.
The board members argued that the school district wouldn’t get that TIF money if CPS leaders didn’t agree to make the municipal pension payment.
“We are telling the city up front that we’re not going to pay this year, but we expect you to give us the money,” board member Emma Lozano said during Wednesday’s board meeting. “I think that we’re dreaming here. That’s not the way things work. And I’m hoping that there is another budget report that’s going to add the payment because I don’t see how this is going to work.”
Members Anusha Thotakura and Brown said CPS need to acknowledge that the process of getting the $379 million is political.
The mayor’s office confirmed on Thursday that they believe the budget presented Thursday includes risky assumptions.
“The TIF [surplus] number that was included was significant,” senior mayoral adviser Jason Lee said. “Certainly, there can be questions about that number — especially in a world in which, even at that number, no [pension] payment is being made … I just don’t think the math is gonna math out.”
Lee and Deputy Mayor for External Affairs Kennedy Bartley attended Wednesday’s school board meeting when the new budget was unveiled.
Lee said Johnson wants the school board that he still controls to “put a final product out that passes muster in every dimension — from making critical investments in our kids and preserving the classroom experience to making sure that there’s an expectation that the state be part of the solution.”
In apparent reference to the borrowing that City Hall has pushed, so far, without success, Lee said Johnson wants the board to “make sure that the budget has flexibility so that, if there are some issues with different revenue streams that there’s still a backstop, ways the district can get money if they need it.”
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