Chicago Public Schools is planning to cut teaching staff to help close a $732.5 million deficit as it rolls out school-level budgets for next year, though the exact number of eliminated positions across the district remains unclear.

At a media briefing Tuesday, CPS leaders said teacher losses will be capped at four per elementary school and six per high school as the district adjusts its staffing allocation formulas. Class size limits will remain unchanged, officials said, citing several years of declining enrollment.

Principals are slated to receive their school’s budgets this week, as the cash-strapped district faces rising costs, increased student need and stagnant state funding. The full fiscal year 2027 budget is expected to be presented in mid-summer and must win school board approval by the end of August.

“We knew coming in that this would not be an easy budget cycle,” CPS CEO Macquline King said. “We have to make decisions based on the revenue sources that we have, and not the revenue we wish we had.”

The district did not share the total number of positions that will be cut, or the projected savings from staffing reductions, partly because principals can choose to use discretionary funding to hire additional teachers.

Acting chief budget officer Emila Zoko said she expects overall school funding levels to remain “roughly equal,” but that resources will be allocated differently — largely because special education and English Language Learner enrollment have grown, even as overall enrollment has declined.

Officials are planning significant cuts to central office and administrative departments, stressing that their priority is to shield classrooms from further reductions. The budget is based on a projected $100 million in surplus funding from Tax Increment Financing districts.

The district’s smallest schools will also lose funding for assistant principals. A CPS spokesperson noted that principals can appeal their school staffing levels, and said those numbers are not yet finalized. But Kia Banks, president of the Chicago Principals & Administrators Association, said the cuts would affect more than 120 assistant principals.

“An (assistant principal) is not optional … They are critical and essential to maintaining instruction,” Banks said. “The district is adding more compliance, more discipline, more work, with less resources.”

Meanwhile, the budget forecast does not include a disputed $175 million pension reimbursement to the city covering non-teaching CPS staff, likely setting up another political standoff with City Hall.

The end of federal relief

Over the past several years, most schools saw stable or increased funding, buoyed by nearly $3 billion in federal pandemic relief aid. Since 2019, CPS has added 9,790 staff positions — even as enrollment fell by 45,000 students.

Many smaller, higher-needs schools also saw a boost in staffing and resources when the district shifted from an enrollment-based funding model to a needs-based, equity formula in 2024.

Now that pandemic aid has dried up, surging expenses are forcing the district to confront direct cuts to schools. Typically, school-level budgets are released between March and May to give principals and Local School Councils enough time to plan staffing and programming before classes start after summer break.

Budget cuts will adjust how core teachers, intervention teachers and lead coaches are allocated. All high schools will still have at least 10 teachers, but one additional teacher will be added for every 22 students, rather than every 21.

Elementary schools will see similar shifts, adding one student per teacher across the board —  ranging from 23 students per teacher at the highest-needs schools, to 27 at the lowest. All schools will have at least 10 teachers, as with previous years.

“I believe that the school budgets largely protect resources and supports that have the most direct impact on our students’ daily learning experience,” King said.

The $732.5 million deficit accounts for increased funding for students with disabilities, including special education teachers, classroom assistants and other support staff, according to CPS. District leaders also say they will add 60 new cluster programs — separate special education classrooms — and expand transportation for students with disabilities.

There are about 54,800 students with documented disabilities at CPS, making up about 17.3% of the district. That share has grown over the past decade, up nearly 16% since 2019, which mirrors national trends.

The funding equation

The Chicago Teachers Union and other advocates have sought to place the onus on the state for the district’s financial woes. Under the state’s Evidence-Based Funding formula, which aims to deliver equitable funding for schools in low-income communities, CPS is only funded at 73% of adequacy.

Officials have estimated that CPS needs an additional $985 million to meet the state’s 90% adequacy target next fiscal year — a figure that would effectively cover the budget gap. But the state is also in a tight spot financial spot, and lawmakers are unlikely to come up with that kind of money.

“If Illinois was in compliance with EBF, CPS would not be staring down cuts right now,” CTU Vice President Jackson Potter said in a statement.

The state’s funding formula “requires a real commitment, one that accounts for what students actually need,” Potter added. “Chicago’s overwhelmingly Black and brown students deserve that commitment alongside every other student in this state.”

There are other factors driving the district’s fiscal challenges, including maintenance for aging facilities, rising labor costs, and billions in long-term debt. The district’s debt service budget has ballooned from $607 million in 2019 to $1.04 billion this fiscal year, largely due to a series of “scoop-and-toss” borrowing from 2015 to 2017 — a tactic used to push current debt payments into the future.

Unlike other school districts in Illinois, which are covered by the state, CPS must bear most of its own teacher pension costs.

The disputed $175 million pension reimbursement is for the Municipal Employees’ Annuity and Benefit Fund, which covers city employees, including some non-teaching CPS staff. Historically, the payment was covered entirely by the city, but in recent years, City Hall has pushed for CPS to shoulder some of the the cost.

This fiscal year, CPS agreed to make the $175 million payment, contingent on additional surplus TIF revenue eventually came through.

TIF is a tool that cities use to fund for economic development in specific areas. Officials draw a boundary, freeze property taxes at their current level and channel any increase in property tax revenue above that baseline into a dedicated fund. That money then goes towards development projects, which can include capital improvements for CPS schools.

Each year, city officials can also declare a TIF surplus, sweeping funds not tied to specific projects back into general revenue. Those funds are disbursed across taxing bodies, with CPS receiving roughly half and the city getting about a quarter.

Both CPS and City Hall have increasingly relied on TIF surplus revenue as a one-time patch to plug structural deficits. Last year, Mayor Brandon Johnson declared a record $1 billion surplus, funneling $522 million into the school district.

Last summer, the Board of Education closed a $734 million shortfall by cutting central office budgets and refinancing debt. The $10.25 billion budget still included some cuts, including the layoffs of hundreds of janitors and simplified school meals, but largely averted direct cuts to school budgets.

This year’s projection of $100 million in TIF surplus funding is a modest forecast, according to Joe Ferguson, president of the Civic Federation. But he called the figure “responsible” given that TIF revenue depends on the city’s budget, which isn’t finalized until months after CPS sets its own.

“There’s no more blood to be squeezed from that turnip. No magic bullets out there,” Ferguson said. “We really are truly at a place of reckoning, certainly at a place of reckoning without some new funding source dropping out of the sky.”