* WGN earlier this week…
The Agenda Review Committee for the Chicago School Board held a meeting Wednesday after Chicago Public Schools announced a plan this week to cut jobs and increase class sizes for the 2026-27 school year, citing a $732.5 million budget deficit as it closes out this school year.
In a letter sent to families and staff Monday, CPS leaders outlined what they describe as a major budget deficit caused by declining enrollment, rising operational costs and inadequate state and federal funding. […]
Stacy Davis Gates, head of the Chicago Teachers Union, is calling for the district to lobby Springfield, saying there are not enough job cuts to make up for a lack of state funding. The union said CPS is funded at 73% of what the state considers adequate. [….]
According to the Chicago Tribune, CPS leaders say losses will be capped at four teachers per elementary school and six teachers per high school. Additionally, more than 120 assistant principals could be cut, and significant cuts are also expected at the central office and in administrative departments.
* Mayor Johnson in the Sun-Times today…
Mayor Brandon Johnson on Thursday ruled out school closings to help the Chicago Public Schools dig out of a $732 million hole, and said it’s up to the Illinois General Assembly to approve progressive revenue measures he believes it will take to avoid classroom cuts. […]
Johnson used a record $1 billion tax increment surplus to bail out CPS and bankroll a new teacher’s contract in his third city budget. He told the Sun-Times and WBEZ that his hope for staving off threatened classroom cuts is for Gov. JB Pritzker and state lawmakers grappling with their own budget crisis to ride to the rescue with what he calls progressive revenue.
That’s a long shot at best with only two weeks to go in the spring session.
“The last I checked, the state of Illinois has a moral responsibility to ensure that the most vulnerable… are prioritized,” he said. “And so, whether it’s a digital ad tax, whether it’s a billionaire’s tax, there is still time in Springfield to ensure that our children are prioritized.”
* Rich has been warning about this inevitable problem for years. The Tribune lays it out…
Over the past several years, most schools saw stable or increased funding, buoyed by nearly $3 billion in federal pandemic relief aid. Since 2019, CPS has added 9,790 staff positions — even as enrollment fell by 45,000 students. […]
Now that pandemic aid has dried up, surging expenses are forcing the district to confront direct cuts to schools. Typically, school-level budgets are released between March and May to give principals and Local School Councils enough time to plan staffing and programming before classes start after summer break.
From Rich: They put temporary federal aid into their spending base. As you can plainly see, bad things happen when you do that. And, to be clear, this started before Johnson was elected.
- NIU Grad - Thursday, May 14, 26 @ 1:46 pm:
“CPS has added 9,790 staff positions — even as enrollment fell by 45,000 students.”
CPS currently exists as a jobs and advocacy engine for the CTU, not an educational entity. With CTU finally holding the reins of CPS, there’s no way that the rest of the state will have the political will to bail them out.
- JS Mill - Thursday, May 14, 26 @ 1:56 pm:
School Finance 101 (and what should be common sense) you do not add permanent legacy positions with one time grant money regardless of whether it is federal, state, or private grant money. Period.
Adults know this.
- Mary - Thursday, May 14, 26 @ 2:03 pm:
At this rate you could have all 180,000 elementary ed kids in pods of 6 led by a teacher, and save money, while paying each teacher 120k/year–well in excess of their current average teacher salary costs under the current contract. And probably get reading proficiency scores above 6%.
- Sue - Thursday, May 14, 26 @ 2:17 pm:
No excuse running schools at 30 percent capacity/ even NYC and Mamdani is moving to close and consolidate under utilized buildings- guess this is what happens when the Mayor and CTZu are essentially one and the same- hire 10 thousand surplus folks with covid money then covid money disappears but not the excess hires- it is not the State’e responsibility to bail out Johnson Gates
- sulla - Thursday, May 14, 26 @ 2:22 pm:
I just cannot fathom how someone makes it to the mayorship of a major US city and/or the head of a major teacher’s union and still fails to grasp how to utilize politics to actually achieve an objective.
- Steve M - Thursday, May 14, 26 @ 2:24 pm:
More School Finance 101. If your Operating Expenditures per Pupil (OEPP) is in the top 10 for K-12 districts in the State and has gone from around $17,000 pre-Pandemic to over $27,000 less than a decade later, you do not have a revenue problem. You have a spending (i.e. staffing) problem.
- Demoralized - Thursday, May 14, 26 @ 2:34 pm:
==still fails to grasp==
The CTU is used to being a bully. He still hasn’t figured out that doesn’t work with the state.
- NIU Grad - Thursday, May 14, 26 @ 2:45 pm:
Demoralized nails it. CTU leadership has it baked into their head that compromise is a total failure and that they can’t give an inch. Any candidates in Chicago that don’t give them 100% get an opponent, regardless if they’ll be successful or not.
In any normal school district, they’d be looking at school consolidations right now. But CTU nearly shut down the city after the last round of closings so it’s automatically assumed that it’s “off the table.” The end result is we’re about to have empty classrooms in barely-populated schools throughout our most vulnerable neighborhoods (the ones that have had decreased populations).
- City Zen - Thursday, May 14, 26 @ 2:52 pm:
Just do what Mamdani is doing and short the pensions. Oh, wait.
https://time.com/article/2026/05/13/zohran-mamdani-new-york-city-deficit-budget-funding/
- Google is Your Friend - Thursday, May 14, 26 @ 2:54 pm:
- Sue - Thursday, May 14, 26 @ 2:17 pm:
For the reality-based community, Rahm Emanuel’s supposed fiscal savings from school closures were even more unmoored from reality than astrology or voodoo. They didn’t actually save anything.
https://www.the74million.org/article/chicago-school-closures-offer-a-cautionary-tale-as-the-fiscal-cliff-looms/
- Juvenal - Thursday, May 14, 26 @ 2:55 pm:
Also, lets not be cavalier.
Its the kids who are losing their teachers, they did nothing wrong.
CPS teachers will be laid off by seniority. Unless they are awful, these young teachers will get great jobs making more money in the suburbs, where they will also be represented by teachers’ unions.
Stacy Davis Gates will still have her job; nothing makes union members rally around their leadership like layoffs when they are spared, and the new teachers you are shedding under the seniority rules are the ones who were most likely to bring change to the union.
And the Mayor gets to blame Springfield.
So, everyone wins except the kids,
- Three Dimensional Checkers - Thursday, May 14, 26 @ 3:05 pm:
I do not understand why CPS hired so many new employees during the pandemic, but here we are. It was not like CTU was friendly to the leadership at the time.
- Chicago voter - Thursday, May 14, 26 @ 3:10 pm:
The bulk of the budget is dependent upon local property tax not enrollment.
Working on local revenue works on CPS budgeting.
- Shytown - Thursday, May 14, 26 @ 3:15 pm:
Wow. It’s the first time that I’m seeing how many jobs got added in this timeframe coupled with the loss in student population. If it’s not clear to everyone with a working brain yet, this is all about the CTU expanding members and therefore expanding member money to put in its pocket for political work. Zero justification for handing over another dime to the CTU at this point. It’s time to right size the District and use it as an opportunity to rethink how this District is delivering high-quality services to students to meet them where they are and to help them meet their full potential. This is what Springfield should be demanding before considering giving a single additional dollar to CPS. Let’s finally start putting these kids first and the adults second.
- Ducky - Thursday, May 14, 26 @ 3:57 pm:
Color me unsympathetic to anyone but the kids. The voters get what they deserve when voting for a CTU organizer for Mayor. Serious solutions not on the table to address this crisis. I long for a mayor willing to lock out CTU and break its control.
- Two Left Feet - Thursday, May 14, 26 @ 4:56 pm:
The TIF surpluses aren’t real. That would mean that there aren’t enough projects in the TIF that are in need of developing the area so that it is not blighted. Nope, we’re good. No blight here. And we don’t want to use the “surplus” to pay down the TIF debt early and save interest payments. Let’s pay it out to CPS so it can issue a tax anticipation warrant and borrow against that payments. Or issue some more Alternate Revenue bonds that do not need a referendum, but get around the statutory limits. At this point, state aid is going to debt payments, not classrooms. Money is fungible. I get it. But it can funged either way.
- Just Me 2 - Thursday, May 14, 26 @ 5:00 pm:
How does declining enrollment create a budget pressure? Shouldn’t it be a budget relief?
- Rich Miller - Thursday, May 14, 26 @ 5:23 pm:
=== Shouldn’t it be a budget relief? ===
In business, yes. But schools are not run that way, and there’s been a prohibition on closing schools since Rahm did it. Not sure at the moment if that is still in force. But as noted by a commenter above, Rahm’s closures didn’t really save any money anyway.
- Leslie K - Thursday, May 14, 26 @ 7:48 pm:
@Google @ 2:54–There is so much flawed “logic” in that article you cite it gave me heartburn. For instance, it looks at the entire 11 year window since those closings, which includes the apparent hiring spree years. It tries to blame population loss on the closings, but the closings were because of population loss. Etc.
And even that article didn’t say the closings “didn’t actually save anything.”
There is a good point though that the plans for the empty buildings fell apart. If CPS ever does finally close schools, that should definitely be a lesson learned and not repeated.
- Just Me 2 - Friday, May 15, 26 @ 10:21 am:
=== But schools are not run that way ===
And we wonder why CPS is constantly broke. Fewer kids should mean fewer expenses (teacher salaries).