Chicago Public Schools students may see fewer hot school meals, delays in updating technology, fewer crossing guards, and other changes at their campuses this coming school year as the district tightens its budget. A memo also referenced changes to bell times at 22 district schools to help with providing transportation to more students.

“According to the 2020 Census, Cook County is 40 percent white, 26 percent Latino, 22 percent Black and 8 percent Asian. Chicago is 21 percent of the state’s population. But the statewide ticket recently endorsed by the Cook County Democratic Party is overwhelmingly made up of white Chicagoans (JB Pritzker, Alexi Giannoulias, Mike Frerichs and Margaret Croke), with two Black Chicagoans (Lt. Gov. candidate Christian Mitchell and Kwame Raoul) and no Latinos or Asian Americans.”

In the final days of session, Illinois lawmakers approved House Bill 3657, a pension “sweetener” for police and firefighter employees under Tier 2 pensions that would swell the city’s already staggering retirement debt. In the first year, it would cost $52 million to implement. By 2055, it would add $11.1 billion in accrued liabilities, according to city estimates.

Statements from the Chicago Department of Water Management (CDWM) suggest the city’s failure to align with state and federal requirements could stem from funding woes and expectations that the Trump administration will rescind Biden-era lead policies. CDWM spokesperson Megan Vidis referred to the finalized lead law as merely a “proposed” rule.

At least seven incidents have been reported over the past month. According to the latest community alert, unknown individuals have placed stickers or graffiti bearing anti-Semitic phrases on public and private property, including a mailbox, stop signs, Amazon lockers, and an emergency bell. The department has classified the incidents as hate crimes.

But records show 911 personnel have been sending CARE teams to fewer mental health calls and that police still respond to most despite Mayor Brandon Johnson’s announcement last fall that the police would be removed from the program to give more responsibility to clinical responders. Meanwhile, the federal COVID-19 recovery funding that’s paid for most of the program’s operations will run out next year.

Johnson said furloughs and layoffs are not on the table. “What I can say is there are too many loopholes in this city that allow for the ultra-rich and corporations to get away without having to pay their fair share in taxes. My proposal is going to reflect the values of working people,” he said.

The laid-off employees include three non-Chicago Tribune Guild editors and reporters who covered housing, food and the Bears, the guild shared on social media.

“While campuses were closed for 78 weeks and jobs programs were diminished by the pandemic, there was a record increase in shootings, homicides and carjackings committed by school-aged youths who were not in school. That’s no coincidence. A Chicago study showed a 43 percent decrease in arrests for violent crimes among students in summer jobs programs. Youth summer jobs programs are a critical part of the city’s public safety strategy.”

“The CTU/Johnson strategy from the beginning has been to do next to nothing about a foreseeably dire budget situation — in fact, make it significantly worse — and wait until the crisis got so acute that the state or some other benefactor would swoop in to the rescue. That’s fiscal and managerial malfeasance.”

None of the alderpeople at the sparsely attended committee hearing pressed Deputy Chief Ralph Cruz or Executive Director Allyson Clark-Henson of CPD’s Office of Constitutional Policing and Reform on why CPD had fully complied with just 16 percent of the court order known as the consent decree by the end of 2024. In all, the city set aside at least $887.6 million to implement the consent decree between 2020 and 2025.

The $40.8 million, 52-unit project is funded by $10 million in reallocated tax increment financing funds, $2.9 million in HOME funds, $1.5 million in low-income housing tax credits from the Department of Housing and the Department of Planning and Development, and $7.5 million from the CHA.