![\"Chicago](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/D98F6CA47EF25CB8B0B0755A2B6C66AB.jpg\")
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CHICAGO<\/strong> – The vote on the Chicago Public Schools<\/a>\u2019 proposed 2026 budget is hanging by a thread.\u00a0<\/p>\n Nine CPS board members currently support the budget as is, while 10 are asking for changes, notably the inclusion of a $175 million pension payment and a $200 million short-term high-interest loan to pay for it.<\/p>\n \u2018Bad things happen\u2019 <\/p>\n What we know:<\/p>\n CPS board members and interim CEO Macquline King heard from anxious residents imploring them to pass a budget that minimizes cuts to things like special education.<\/p>\n “When you cut the budget, bad things happen to those individuals like my son and grandson, to those individuals that need those self-contained classrooms,” said parent Vikki Lewis, holding back tears.<\/p>\n King and her leadership team presented a budget that closes a $734 million shortfall with one-time fixes. It pushes a $175 million pension payment onto the city, which it is legally allowed to do, and does not include a controversial short-term $200 million loan.\u00a0<\/p>\n The budget proposal relies on Mayor Brandon Johnson<\/a> to declare more than $300 million in TIF surplus funds, but mayoral-appointed members say that money might not come if CPS pushes the pension payment onto Johnson\u2019s city budget.<\/p>\n “My question is what happens if City Council members spend most of the TIFs, dramatically reducing the TIF surplus?” said elected board member Aaron “Jitu” Brown, a staunch supporter of Johnson and the Chicago Teachers Union. “I think any assumption that will not happen is politically na\u00efve.”<\/p>\n Budget stalemate? <\/p>\n The other side:<\/p>\n But elected members who support CPS\u2019s budget as is argue that, legally, the TIF money should come regardless.<\/p>\n “This isn\u2019t a personal decision,” said elected board member Ellen Rosenfeld, who supports the budget. “There is a city TIF policy that requires a certain amount of TIF money to come to the schools. It\u2019s not at the mayor\u2019s whim; it\u2019s not if we don\u2019t do that, then this happens. There\u2019s a TIF act under state law.”<\/p>\n Rosenfeld criticized the CTU, which criticized former Mayor Lori Lightfoot for calling on CPS to pick up the pension payment. With Johnson, the CTU has changed its position 180 degrees.<\/p>\n CPS needs one board member to flip their vote, or else a rejection of the budget could lead to a shutdown. Johnson refused to weigh in on the debate but said he doesn\u2019t think that\u2019ll happen.<\/p>\n “There will be no stalemate, there\u2019s no shutdown. We\u2019re committed to making sure our children, no matter where they live, have a world-class education, have a school they can walk to that\u2019s fully funded,” the mayor said.<\/p>\n News<\/a>Chicago Public Schools<\/a>Politics<\/a>Brandon Johnson<\/a>Chicago<\/a>Education<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHICAGO – The vote on the Chicago Public Schools\u2019 proposed 2026 budget is hanging by a thread.\u00a0 Nine…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":159438,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[20174,960,5404,16743,407,5386,1818,50,12632,3546,80,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-159437","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-brandon-johnson","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-cook-county","11":"tag-cps","12":"tag-education","13":"tag-il","14":"tag-illinois","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-organization","17":"tag-people","18":"tag-politics","19":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115057660004589672","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159437\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}