The Chicago school board voted to add two questions to the November ballot gauging whether city voters would support drumming up new revenue for Chicago Public Schools.<\/p>\n
The first referendum is whether Illinois should impose a surcharge on millionaires to raise public school funding. The second will ask whether Chicago should charge financial penalties on owners of underdeveloped or vacant lots to funnel money to CPS. Both questions approved Thursday are nonbinding, meaning they don\u2019t enact laws and instead serve as signals to legislators as they make policy decisions.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the first time the Board of Education has exercised its authority to add advisory questions to the ballot.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is fundamentally about how we build the public support necessary to move our schools from scarcity to adequacy,\u201d said board vice president Angel Velez, appointed to represent District 9A on the South Side.<\/p>\n
The questions were put forth by board members aligned with the Chicago Teachers Union and appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson. Johnson himself attempted to add three progressive referendum proposals<\/a> to the November ballot, though only one made it through City Council. Aldermen rejected his bid to ask voters whether they support adding a 3% tax on millionaires. In Springfield, a so-called millionaire\u2019s tax resolution<\/a> made ground this session but ultimately failed to advance among House Democrats.<\/p>\n Chicago school board members in favor of progressive revenue proposals note that the cash-strapped CPS is only 70% funded under the state\u2019s funding formula<\/a>. Both referendum questions passed in a 12-1 vote.<\/p>\n \u201cI want us to place the responsibility for additional funding on those who can best afford it,\u201d said board member Debby Pope, representing District 2B on the Far North Side.<\/p>\n Thursday\u2019s meeting, however, was not without hiccups.<\/p>\n At first, the board fell short of the simple majority needed for a quorum. In an unusual move, the board then reconvened an hour later, this time with 14 members present. Six did not attend: Jessica Biggs, Therese Boyle, Angel Gutierrez, Carlos Rivas, Ellen Rosenfeld and Che \u201cRhymefest\u201d Smith.<\/p>\n Those elected members not in attendance are part of a voting bloc that typically diverges from the CTU-aligned majority. That divide was on full display last month, when CTU-backed members passed a $10.11 billion budget<\/a> banking on $150 million in unconfirmed state revenue, despite warnings from district leadership. The amended spending plan instructed CPS to reverse more than 1,500 layoffs, a directive that has proven difficult to carry out just weeks before school starts. If the money doesn\u2019t materialize, officials said, it could leave CPS vulnerable to midyear cuts.<\/p>\n CTU-backed board members held a press conference following Thursday\u2019s meeting accusing their colleagues of \u201cboycotting\u201d the referendum questions.<\/p>\n