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Chicago Public Colleges estimates {that a} chunk of the Chicago Lecturers Union’s proposals, together with raises for educators, would create a $4 billion deficit for the district by the 2029-2030 faculty yr, officers mentioned Tuesday.
The union, for its half, made suggestions for elevating more cash to help the district, together with growing taxes on rich people and firms, and suing banks for what union officers described as predatory lending practices involving CPS in previous years.
Their feedback got here throughout a public bargaining session Tuesday at Morgan Park Excessive Faculty on the town’s Far South Facet, as a part of negotiations between the district and the CTU over the union’s new contract. These negotiations haven’t made a lot progress over the previous few months. Tuesday’s session, the third bargaining session held in public, centered on the district’s funds.
Granting simply 52 of the union’s 700-plus contract proposals would widen the district’s deficit from a projected $509 million subsequent fiscal yr, to roughly $3 billion, mentioned Mike Sitkowski, the district’s price range director. That hole would develop by one other $1 billion by fiscal yr 2030, he mentioned.
Deficits are already projected for every of the following 5 years, with out the price of a brand new contract, CPS officers have mentioned. As a way to stability future budgets, the district should discover extra funding or will make cuts to workers and packages, they mentioned.
The Chicago Board of Schooling handed a price range for this upcoming faculty yr that closed a $505 million deficit by cuts and different financial savings, however that price range doesn’t embrace funding to cowl the prices of a brand new academics contract.
The district didn’t establish the 52 proposals it thought of as a part of its evaluation, however Sitkowski mentioned the listing included the union’s requests for 9% raises and extra workers.
“We imagine our educators deserve truthful raises, however we should acknowledge what’s accountable and sustainable,” Sitkowski mentioned.
Jackson Potter, the union’s vp, advised district officers that highlighting the deficit associated to CTU’s contract proposals “sends the message which you could’t meet any of our suggestions,” comparable to extra librarians or extra help for bilingual college students. Union President Stacy Davis Gates didn’t instantly reply a reporter’s query about how a lot the union’s proposals would price.
“The value tag is alternative for Black youngsters, immigrant youngsters, and Latine youngsters,” she mentioned.
Davis Gates credited earlier union calls for for delivering the post-pandemic pupil achievement good points that the district usually touts. She mentioned she plans to finish the struggle for funding with this contract, “come hell or excessive water, and I don’t give a rattling who pay.”
Concern about price range challenges has hovered over the contract negotiations this yr, because the district grapples with price range deficits as federal COVID aid {dollars} dry up.
As a way to cowl extra prices, each CPS and the union have known as on the state to supply greater than the $25 million funding enhance it gave this yr. Each events level a finger on the state’s principal faculty funding formulation, underneath which the district wants an extra $1.2 billion to be thought of adequately funded. That determine rose barely this yr after the district enrolled extra college students studying English as a brand new language and because the metropolis noticed a drop in tax income from company income.
Each Gov. J.B. Pritzker and State Superintendent Tony Sanders have mentioned extra funding is just not coming this yr.
Past advocating for extra state funding, Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration additionally inspired the Board of Schooling to take out a short-term mortgage to cowl extra prices, which the board and CPS have rebuffed for now.
Requested just lately if the district may nonetheless take out such a mortgage, Board President Jianan Shi mentioned “every little thing is on the desk,” declining to elaborate additional.
In the course of the bargaining session, the academics union supplied up a number of suggestions past extra state funding on how the district may elevate cash. Aside from extra taxes on the rich and suing huge banks, in addition they instructed in search of extra federal funding and taxing huge tech firms “profiting off our college students’ and households’ non-public knowledge.”
District officers mentioned they need to advocate for extra state funding, together with to totally cowl prices of preschool packages and trainer pensions. The state’s principal funding formulation already accounts for the truth that the district pays for its personal academics’ pensions.
Reema Amin is a reporter masking Chicago Public Colleges. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.
