Board of Education approves $9.9 billion Chicago Public Schools budget
CHICAGO (CBS) -- The Chicago Board of Education on Thursday approved a $9.9 billion spending plan for the Chicago Public Schools for the 2024-25 school year, over the protests of the Chicago Teachers Union, which warned of the impact of spending cuts imposed to eliminate a $500 million deficit.
The strategy for closing that budget gap included an administrative hiring freeze, restructuring long-standing debt, and relying on keeping hundreds of vacant positions open.
The school district is counting on those vacant positions to cut $220 million from the spending plan. CPS officials have said they found the savings by examining natural attrition — that is, staff turnover — and calculating the time it takes to hire and staff positions.
CTU has been highly critical about the budget, rallying outside Thursday's board meeting to urge the board to reject the CPS spending plan.
"There are over 50 vacancies for these roles on CPS website right now. How many will stay empty? And how many students will go without?" said Kizzy Evans, who was laid off from CPS last month.
The union said the cuts and unfilled vacancies will impact the districts' most vulnerable students on the city's South and West Sides.
"We need to have … CPS reject this budget. We need to have promises kept of the commitment that we were going to have an equitable school system. Where is the budget that says this is an equitable-based formula?" said CPS parent Brenda Delgado.
CPS Chief Executive Officer Pedro Martinez defended the plan at Thursday's board meeting, saying it "includes a successful closing of a $505 million financial gap."
Experts said the spending gap was caused in large part by the district's uptick in hiring during the pandemic; an increase in personnel funded by COVID-19 relief funding that will dry up during the 2025-26 school year.
"Those dollars are going away, and there's no way to sustain those positions moving forward," said Hal Woods, chief of policy at Kids First Chicago, a group that helps advocate for parents and their students, mainly on the South and West sides. "There will be new positions opened at schools, but there is that flux that I think always causes tumult I think in school communities when you're having staff moving out."
CPS is adding 513 new teacher positions in the upcoming school year, along with 337 new support staff.
The district also has made cuts to maintenance, repairs, custodial staff, bus monitors, crossing guards, and teacher resident positions. CPS previously agreed to eliminate their school resource officer program district-wide, taking Chicago police officers out of the last few remaining schools where they were still assigned.
"This budget has been balanced on the backs of staff whose positions have been cut," one CTU member said during the board meeting's public comment period. "My students' families are losing an advocate for their children."
The CPS budget does not include any money for raises for teachers and other staff that are expected to come in a new contract now being negotiated with CTU. So the same board likely will have to re-balance the budget again once that contract is set.
CTU responded to approval of the budget plan by announcing they plan to launch an "Underfunded and Understaffed Tracker" to document shortages they say students will experience when they return to the classroom.