Today is a day of such significance, it deserves a longer email.
But the TLDR is that Mayor Johnson is proposing a budget to Protect Chicago. In the proposal is a never-before historic release of TIF funds that will result in over half a billion dollars for our schools. That’s enough to fulfill the $379M already budgeted, secure Black Student Success regardless of Trump cuts, and kick in for the retirement of the backbone of our schools, the workers whose pensions are in the MEABF.
Now, we need to tell our Aldermen to vote yes.
Tell Your Alderperson “Vote Yes” on
the Protect Chicago Budget.
Today, Mayor Johnson put forward a local answer to the DOGE team at the White House and the DOGE caucus in council. Invest in our communities, protect our city from cuts, put working people first by making the tech corporations pay their fair share.
With all of us pushing aldermen to vote yes and make sure the city does its part, it’ll be up to Springfield to follow suit. This is an incredible and unexpected move to stabilize our schools, but restoring the cuts and the full funding we need can only be done if the Governor and IL General Assembly act as boldly.
So today, we celebrate the difference of having a union man and a teacher as mayor instead of a privatizer, we commit to pushing city council to keep their promise to our schools, and we get ready to make sure the Governor and ILGA do the same.
Now for the background…
One year ago, we were in the fight of our lives. A CEO who refused to prioritize our students. A $734 million deficit that threatened our schools. Donald Trump’s burgeoning attacks on everything we’ve built.
Today, we’re celebrating a historic budget that protects our city.
Our Road
In December, the Board of Education voted for new CPS leadership. After eleven months of bargaining and working without a contract, in April, we won the most transformative contract in CTU history.
We won enforceable class sizes, doubled librarians and bilingual supports, and tripled sustainable community schools. We protected Black history, codified sanctuary school protections, and created LGBTQIA+ safe schools. This contract turned the page on decades of disinvestment in Black children and working families.
But by summer, the state’s perpetual underfunding meant CPS reported a $734 million budget hole. In August, the Board passed a budget that kept schools open but included painful cuts: 480 custodial jobs, fewer crossing guards, fewer hot meals.
That budget relied on a promise from a majority of aldermen to deliver a TIF surplus that the very next day we were told wouldn’t be happening. But spoiler: the Mayor is helping them keep their promise.
While we faced our local challenges, everything has heightened as Trump wages war on our city and our values. The madman attempted to eliminate the Department of Education, slashed SNAP benefits that feed our families, and cut staff charged with funding special education students across the country.
He unleashed federal agents to terrorize Chicago families and communities, and withheld funding for both the Black Student Success Program and trans student protections that our union fought for and won.
Mayor Johnson passed executive orders to protect the right to protest, stood with us at Funston Elementary, and now is promoting a Protect Chicago budget.
Our Victory
While Trump destroys, Mayor Brandon Johnson delivers. The budget the mayor presented today includes a record TIF surplus of $520 million – more than half a billion dollars – for Chicago Public Schools. The mayor isn’t placing more burden on working families, but taxing large corporations and Big Tech companies. There are no property tax increases on our households. This is the most historic TIF surplus in our city’s history and together with other provisions in the Mayor’s budget makes it possible to:
- Protect the Black Student Success Plan from Trump’s assaults
- Add critical funding to special education to counter federal cuts
- Provide resources for social and emotional support and expand free mental health clinics and crisis response teams
- Ensure our lowest-paid workers receive their hard-earned retirement security
- Expand youth employment, peacekeeping in our communities, and early childhood education through a new $100 million community safety fund
- Fund the legal fights to challenge Trump’s illegal withholding of resources and protect vulnerable communities from federal overreach
Today’s historic investment is a victory, but it’s not the finish line. It’s what real leadership looks like. It’s what’s possible when you fight for working families instead of against them.
It’s what we need our Governor and IL General Assembly to mirror at the state level. Chicago can only do so much while Illinois’ tax system is upside down. We need our state government to fight Trump cuts with ending tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy and to protect Illinois with the promised but undelivered resources to our schools, transit, and public institutions.
Our Lesson
Nearly 200 years ago, the Chicago City Council voted to refuse cooperation with fugitive slave patrols, and Chicagoans created liberty associations to keep each other free. A century ago, Pullman porters helped build this city into a Black metropolis. We have been knee deep in the legacy of Black Renaissance and resistance ever since. Today’s budget, the budget to protect Chicago, is that legacy.
The mayor’s budget brings half a billion dollars to fill the hole left by the $1.6 billion the state still owes Chicago Public Schools, and we cannot let Springfield off the hook.
Chicago doesn’t need any more austerity. Our government – our people – have been starved enough. We need delivery on the promise of freedom and opportunity that brought generations to this city: good jobs, safe communities, and fully funded schools.
Mayor Johnson is showing us how a union mayor in a union town leads when working families are under attack. He’s doing his part. And the reality is, there’s only so much city government can do. That’s why our next stop is Springfield. Governor JB Pritzker and the General Assembly must follow the example Chicago is setting.
Our Future
Communities are under siege. Trump has declared war on our city and our values. But he’s learning that Chicago is a city that protects its own. Chicago has always been a city that protects its own, and our union – our labor – is leading that fight.
We’re fighting for every dollar our students are owed: nearly two billion from Springfield, the resources to counter Trump’s cuts, and the investment our communities have been denied for generations. Today’s budget and the election of the mayor who made it possible prove that we can win. We’re continuing to fight for full funding, for sanctuary protections, and for the promise this city made to working families.
We stand at the crossroads, but Mayor Johnson is pointing the path forward today. Now, we march on the road to reconstruction for fully funded schools, fully protected communities, and as a union that will never, ever back down.
In Solidarity,
Your CTU Leadership Team
President Stacy Davis Gates
Vice President Jackson Potter
Recording Secretary Vicki Kurzydlo
Financial Secretary Dr. Diane Castro