Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez to speak during City Council committee hearing Wednesday morning

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CHICAGO — The budget shortfall faced by Chicago Public Schools will take center-stage during a City Council committee meeting Wednesday morning.

Embattled CPS CEO Pedro Martinez will appear before City Council members during an Education Committee subject matter hearing on the district’s budget.

At the heart of the ongoing turmoil in CPS — and tensions between Martinez and Mayor Brandon Johnson — is a lack of funding faced by the district. CPS has a current shortfall exceeding $500 million.

Johnson, a former CPS teacher and Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) activist, and Martinez, who was appointed by former Mayor Lori Lightfoot, have clashed over Johnson’s push to take out a short-term, high-interest loan to pay for mounting district expenses, including pension and contract costs.

While reports indicated Johnson asked Martinez to resign, the mayor denied those claims. Outgoing members of the Board of Education, which rejected the idea of the more than $300 million payday loan and refused to fire Martinez, abruptly resigned amid the power struggle.

The mayor then appointed six new board members, which he announced during a defiant press conference earlier this month. Despite opposition from a majority of City Council members, the mayor insisted naming new board members is what’s best — and that he has the sole authority to do it — as CPS prepares to transition to a larger, partially-elected School Board in January.

Forty-one of 50 City Council members signed a letter amid the School Board resignations, criticizing the board shakeups and the mayor’s loan proposal. They also asked for a City Council hearing to happen before the end of the month to vet the six new School Board members.

Last week, City Council tried to hold a special meeting, calling on the outgoing and future board members to appear, but none showed, leading to the meeting being canceled.

Meanwhile, CTU announced a proposal for Tax Increment Financing (TIF) funds to be allocated to help fund CPS. On the same day, Martinez claimed in a statement that CPS has been advocating for additional TIF revenues for pension payment and labor agreements since Johnson took office.

The statement, in part, read:

“On April 30, 2024, the Board president, my leadership team, and I presented a solution to the Mayor’s office to use TIF funding from the City to help cover the cost of pension payments and new labor contracts without making cuts or taking out loans. We have continued to advocate for additional TIF funding in regularly scheduled meetings with the Mayor’s office and with alderpersons. My team and I have specifically resisted taking out expensive short-term debt, and we have advocated against cuts, because we knew that this solution was on the table at our request. In fact, we developed scenarios to show how devastating each of these options would be if additional revenues were not found.”

CTU President Stacy Davis Gates then responded with a statement to Martinez’s proposal for TIFs to be used to help address district expenses:

“CEO Martinez’s leadership is marked by being a day late and a dollar short over and over. He angered legislators in Springfield by not appearing until the last week of session last year. He passed an incomplete budget earlier this year. Now, he’s parroting the CTU’s proposals literally hours after they’re made.”

Wednesday’s City Council meeting was expected to get underway at City Hall at 9 a.m.

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Courtney Spinelli

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