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The Chicago school board postponed a high-stakes vote on whether to amend its budget and make a pension payment that has pitted the district against the mayor’s office.
In the minutes before the start of the board’s monthly meeting Thursday, Chicago Board of Education President Sean Harden pulled the amendment from the agenda, along with a separate resolution that would have committed the district to pay the city $175 million toward a municipal pension fund both this year and next.
A number of school board members had signaled they would not support the amendment, and putting off the vote allowed Harden to avoid an embarrassing failure to whip up the necessary votes. Budget-related items require two-thirds vote — or 14 members — to pass.
The delay came on a day when both the district and the Chicago Teachers Union reported they were on the cusp of reaching a deal in contentious contract talks that have stretched on for almost a year. The budget amendment would have also covered the cost of that contract and one for the principals union that’s also under negotiation.
Harden said he was shelving the amendment vote because CPS and the union were “extremely, extremely” close to landing a tentative agreement. He suggested the board would revisit the amendment shortly, after the contract and its cost were locked in.
“Considerable progress has been made,” he said. “I am very pleased about that.”
During a press conference in front of CPS headquarters before the board meeting, CTU leaders said a bargaining session Thursday morning during which district leaders presented counter offers has brought the two sides even closer to each other though some daylight remains on the key contested issues. Union officials highlighted pay for veteran teachers and elementary teacher preparation time. They also urged the school board to back the amendment and cover the $175 million pension reimbursement to the city.
District officials had presented the board with a budget amendment that added in an extra $139 million in property tax dollars that CPS received from the city this past winter. The amendment also says the district could use the money to pay for the contracts and reimburse the city for the $175 million payment to the pension fund, which covers some non-teaching staff. But it did not spell out how the district would swing both expenditures.
In recent weeks, the city has stepped up pressure on the district to pay up. During a public hearing on the amendment last week, city officials and some aldermen threatened that the city could withhold future tax revenue from CPS if the district doesn’t reimburse the payment.
But district leaders and some elected board members have continued to insist that the district just simply doesn’t have a good way of scrounging up the money for the payment, which by law remains the responsibility of the city. A report by the consulting firm Baker Tilly released this week seemed to validate that stance: It noted that restructuring the district’s debt — an option the mayor’s office has championed recently — is uncertain and likely won’t give the heavily indebted CPS much bang for its buck.
Anticipating the possibility that the amendment might not get enough votes, some board members also introduced a separate resolution to commit the district to paying the $175 million to the city both this year and next. That resolution would have needed a simple majority of the board to support it. Unlike other items coming before the board, it contained blank spots where Martinez’s signature and that of Chief Financial Officer Miroslava Mejia Krug would be.
But it appeared that this board could not pass this resolution without a budget amendment appropriating the money to cover that new expense.
The continued logjam at the bargaining table with the teachers union also loomed over the Thursday night meeting. Dozens of teachers packed the board meeting to call for a quick resolution to the contract talks.
The two sides are stuck on how much preparation time elementary school teachers should have. The union initially asked for 90 minutes — returning 30 minutes that were cut a decade ago in order to lengthen the school day. The union reduced their ask to 80 minutes and the district has moved to 70 minutes, up from the hour these teachers currently have. Other outstanding issues include how much veteran teachers are paid and how frequently highly-rated teachers are evaluated by principals.
At the Thursday press conference, Chrystel Williams, the union’s recording secretary and a former CPS paraprofessional, noted that the city’s fund pays for pensions for paraprofessionals. She argued that the district’s resistance to chipping in for the fund is a “slap in the face” for support staff who rely on it.
Support for the pension payment is a reversal for the CTU, whose leaders had sharply criticized former Mayor Lori Lightfoot for passing on costs to the district, saying she was balancing the city’s budget on the backs of students. With Johnson in charge — and a partly elected school board stepping in earlier this year — the union has shifted its position.
Signaling that union leaders feel they are close to a deal, Randi Weingarten, the head of the American Federation of Teachers, of which the CTU is part, made an appearance at the press conference. She called on the board to settle the teachers contract, arguing that President Trump’s push to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education added urgency.
“The way in which we fight Donald Trump is for Chicago to say, ‘We care about our children,’” she said.
Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.
