CPS To Cut $75 Million From Budget
UPDATED 06/02/11 10:26 a.m.
CHICAGO (CBS) -- It didn't take long for Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Chicago Public Schools chief executive officer J.C. Brizard to warn of some serious financial problems in the school system.
Mayor Emanuel said Wednesday that the CPS budget will be cut by $75 million next year. Staff cuts at the Central Office will come first.
Also, planned upgrades of office computer systems will be eliminated, and the school district's capital projects will be scaled back.
The school bus fleet will be downsized, and the custodian budget will be cut.
Brizard said Wednesday that the district is trying to avoid increasing classroom sizes.
"We're trying hard not to put that on the table," he said after meeting with a group of parents on his listening tour.
He said he believes in a "lean central office that allows bounded autonomy" or freedoms, with some controls, inside schools.
He says he's also been talking to former schools CEO Ron Huberman, who left in November, and interim schools CEO Terry Mazany about whether to make cuts at the regional level, too. Currently, the district has about two dozen chief area officers in middle management who overlook schools within their region and often set their own assessment goals and programs.
Brizard, who started in the New York City schools system, said the larger school district had only 10 regional heads but he often felt like he didn't know all of his principals.
"I don't know what the right number is, whether it's 24, 20 or 15," he said. "That's what we're looking at now."
The district is still hoping to send school principals their individual school budgets by the end of this week.
CPS is dealing with a budget hole of $720 million.
The Sun-Times Media Wire contributed to this report.
