By: Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner
For years the Chicago Teachers Union was the proverbial dog chasing the car. The union attacked mayors and CPS administrators for not giving in to their demands – it thrived on always having someone else to blame.
But when it won the mayorship with Brandon Johnson last year, the union finally caught the car. Now it has no idea what to do, particularly when it comes to financing its spending dreams. As it turns out, both the Chicago Public Schools and the City of Chicago are flirting with upcoming yearly budget shortfalls of up to $1 billion.
Below we lay out the key issues and facts facing the mayor at CPS. A separate analysis on the city budget currently being put together by the mayor and his team will follow.
Key issues:
- The covid money is running out and there simply isn’t the cash needed to fund the personnel and benefits that were beefed up during covid, let alone the union’s new demands. In all, CPS received $2.8 billion in federal covid aid over the years and the last $233 million will be spent in 2025.
- Remember that CTU president Stacey Davis-Gates warned the union’s demands would add up to “$50 billion and three cents.” When asked where the money would come from, she said “stop asking that question.”
- Mayor Brandon Johnson is stuck between his loyalties to the CTU and actually running both the city and school district. If he shifts $175 million from the city to CPS to pay for some of the district’s pension costs – which the CTU is demanding – he creates a hole for himself in the city budget.
- CPS officials have openly and flatly rejected Johnson’s idea of borrowing hundreds of millions to fund CPS.
- The deficit is an obvious consequence for a school district with declining enrollment (though migrant children grew enrollment last year), bloated staffing, and hundreds of half-empty schools.
Key facts:
- This is the last budget/negotiation where Johnson has full control over a 7-person school board he fully appoints. Going forward, 10 of 21 school board members will be voted on by the public in Nov. 2024. In 2026, all 21 school board members will be voted on by the public.
- The 2025 budget is, all in, $9.9 billion. That’s up from $9.4 billion in 2024.
- CPS initially reported a $503 million deficit for 2025. District officials plan to close the gap via administrative spending cuts, staff reductions, debt restructuring, and leaving vacancies unfilled. The increased salary/benefits costs from the CPS/CTU contract currently being negotiated aren’t included in the 2025 budget shortfall, and neither are the above-mentioned $175 million in pension costs that CPS wants the city to pay. The real deficit may be closer to $800 million.
- Johnson rejected the administration’s cut proposals and called for the district to borrow $300 million instead. CPS officials eventually rejected Johnson’s idea and stuck to their original planned cuts.
- CPS is spending the last of its federal covid dollars, $233 million, in 2025. The end of those revenues could push the FY2026 deficit close to $1 billion.
- A separate CPS analysis shows the district’s deficit could rise to $4 billion a year by 2029 if the district were to agree to the CTU’s contract demands.
- CPS went on a hiring spree during the covid years. Total staffing has grown to 46,000 in 2025 – a 10,000 increase, or 26%, vs. 2019. Student enrollment, in contrast, is down 9%.
Other facts:
- All-in, Chicago Public Schools will spend over $30,000 per student in 2025, up 74% since spending $17,265 in 2018.
- Student outcomes are still dismal despite all that new spending. Preliminary 2024 results from the Illinois Assessment of Readiness (for grades 3-8) shows just 31% of CPS students can read at grade level. While that’s up from 28% in 2019, math results are still way down. Just 19% of students can do math at grade level compared to 24% in 2019 (see chart above)
- The district is junk-rated by Moody’s and is already carrying $9 billion in debt.
- Moody’s also now rates Detroit’s credit higher than the City of Chicago’s. Chicago has the lowest rating (one notch above junk) of the nation’s big cities.
- Pensions are becoming an issue again as the covid money finally runs out. Chicago pensions have hit a new shortfall of $53 billion (that’s the city’s 4 funds plus CPS). That’s $45,000 in debt per household that must be paid off over time.
Audio and summary 
If this bill passes, say goodbye to local control over all Illinois parks and expect to see open drug and alcohol use, needles, no sanitation and fire hazards, but no ordinary park users.
The public unions should not be allowed, by law , to spend any monies on politics. Let the members choose to spend their own funds on politics.
Frankly I don’t think public unions should be allowed.
There’s no opposed sides negotiating, it’s paid politics.
A former public schools employee in a suburb south of Chicago pleaded guilty to stealing $1.5 million of food from her district during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Florida Schools cost much less than the worthless Chicago schools do.
The start of a new school year always brings a fresh sense of excitement and anticipation, and when the bells ring Monday morning across Broward and Palm Beach counties, there will be extra reason for pride.
Both districts recently regained the highly coveted A rating from the state Department of Education, a reflection of learning gains by students in the two K-12 systems.
Waiting for PPF to chime in and tell us there is plenty of money, plenty more taxes to raise. Crickets from that corner lately.
To be fair, PPF’s statement about having headroom for more taxes is in reference to paying pensions. That is his myopic focus. I have never observed him commenting on the quality of public schools or the efficiency in which they operate. What is the end state here? The budget deficits projected are in a sense illusory because they don’t account for the significant costs of a new union contract. Even if CTU obtains only 20 percent of what they are asking for, the budget impact will be material – meaning the deficit will also be material. I suspect that given… Read more »
The public unions should not be allowed, by law , to spend any monies on politics. Let the members choose to spend their own funds on politics.
Sorry thumbs down union watchdog goon. You got outvoted.
Stop digging and IMMEDIATELY file for bankruptcy, find me one financial analyst that would disagree and I’ll show you a quack!
The political reality is that Springfield will not let Chicago enter bankruptcy. In fact, they won’t let any troubled municipality do so as the last thing the politicians want to do is concede defeat. What this leads to is lots of misery and a substandard quality of life. CPS and the City have at its disposal property tax increases to raise revenue. No matter Johnson’s promises, the City will have to materially raise property taxes. Other ways to raise revenue require Springfield’s consent or a referendum at the voting booth (Johnson couldn’t get Bring Home Chicago passed. This will of… Read more »
How much can the tax rate be increased? What will the real estate bill be for a $300k house?
How much can the tax rate be increased? How much do you have? That’s the answer to Demofilth.
Michael Waldmeir – one can argue in many neighborhoods the saturation point has already been reached. But the City has leaders who refuse to materially cut budgets – the patronage jobs are their oxygen – so they will always seek the money. The City has fewer levers for revenue than the State, and property taxes are a path for more revenue – people be damned – the leaders only care to the extent it impacts their election prospects. I thought Johnson’s reaction to the voters’ rejection of Bring Home Chicago was fascinating – he blamed it on non-existent conservatives in… Read more »
Maybe Mark can get on Redacted to talk about Chicago and Illinois. My 200+ YouTube subscriptions are increasingly talking about Chicago as the date approaches.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qzJHXvTAuWU
All this wonderful and accurate research needs to hit the major web players, from someone with credibility and who’s put in the work
That’d be cool, especially if there were a whole media blitz to coincide with the DNC. After Redacted, Mark could call into bofadeez.
@rr, What’s a “bofadeez”?
You just gotta listen to the Terry Newsome segment here. The DNC is gonna be a war zone for the convention.
WE ARE LOSING 200K A YEAR. CIRCLING 2035 ON MY
CALENDAR!!!
2024 taxes will go up again and more people will leave again.
2025 taxes will go up again and more people will leave again.
2026 taxes will go up again and more people will leave again.
.
.
2030 Chicago ask Illinois to declare bankruptcy.
2031 Illinois asks Federal gov for bailout.
I don’t think bankruptcy can wait that long
Wirepoints should be on a Newsmax, Fox, or RSBN news panel while they are doing coverage of the Dem convention here, armed with all these facts from the last two articles. Better yet you guys need to get a 90 minute interview with Tucker Carlson, who has a bigger audience than all the other cable news channels combined, to go over Chicago and Illinois. It would be a hoot, the rest of the country wouldn’t believe just how bad it is. But still Illinois has the 5th highest GDP of the states, with a GDP like that just think what… Read more »
I would add Sean Hannity. His broadcast is mostly about the politics in Washington but he needs to address individual states like Illinois. It would be a good interview with Mark and get nationwide exposure.
Hannity, I can’t stomach because he never shuts up, but better than nothing. Chicago and Illinois will soon be in the national spotlight. The media will be busy putting perfume on a pig all week. We need to get Mark on a national platform be it web or cable with all these facts and truth. A Tucker interview would have the most impact by far.
Data seems clear – CPS turned into an enormous CTU jobs and vote buying program. Just by bringing employee headcount into proper alignment with enrollment, there is a budget surplus.
Jack, don’t forget slush funds for the Democratic Party. That my property taxes pay for this racket galls me.