Months ago, the Chicago Board of Education passed a $10.11 billion budget that expected state lawmakers to funnel $150 million in additional funding to the school district, without any promise from Springfield that they would follow through.
As Chicago voters prepare to choose their first-ever elected school board president on Tuesday, that still-unfulfilled expectation has become a lightning rod among the three candidates as they sell their solutions for the district’s precarious finances.
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The politically muscular Chicago Teachers Union has long argued against classroom cuts and school closures, and the common refrain among the sitting board members who agree is that the state must pitch in more money now.
Under the state’s own formula, Chicago Public Schools has only 70% of the funding seen as adequate. But the demand that Springfield boost the district now clashes with the state’s own daunting budgetary constraints.
The union’s endorsed candidate, Hilario Dominguez, has insisted that the state can pitch in now. The former teacher and CTU political organizer has touted his Springfield connections in getting the state to capitulate.
“The money is there,” Dominguez said at a WTTW-Ch. 11 debate in September. “I believe the job of a school board president isn’t to predict that Springfield will say no. I believe the job of a school board president is to fight and make sure that Springfield will say yes.”
The two other candidates, Jessica Biggs and Victor Henderson, have decried the board’s move to demand and wait for money that hasn’t appeared.
Biggs, a current board member, voted against the budget amendment that demanded $100 million in more evidence-based funding from state lawmakers and an additional $50 million in grants. She counts the Service Employees International Union and billionaire Michael Sacks among her major backers.
Henderson, a lawyer who touts himself as the outsider in the race, has insisted that any financial reforms can only happen after the district undergoes a forensic audit. As for Springfield, he has said better funding should come via a transactional “business deal” with state leaders.
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On the campaign trail, Biggs often describes her experience as a South Side principal in 2017, during a similar episode in the district’s long-brewing financial woes. The last time Chicago schools budgeted for state money that never came, the already-troubled district had to make even more cuts and borrow more money.
Then-Gov. Bruce Rauner vetoed a bill in 2016 that he lambasted as a bailout for the district’s pension obligations. However, the following year, the Republican enacted the “evidence-based” funding formula the state uses today for schools.
The memory of the district scrambling to make cuts should have warned the district not to expect money the state didn’t plan to provide, Biggs has said.
“Resolving our financial challenges needs to start with being honest,” she said at a WFLD-Ch. 32 debate in September. “Every state legislator that I talked to wants to see us use the resources that we have responsibly — wants to see a clear plan for the future.”
Though lawmakers will return to Springfield for a brief veto session this fall, the legislature already passed its budget for this school year.
At an unrelated news conference on Thursday in Chicago, Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat, said there “hasn’t really been an ongoing discussion” about supplemental money. The state should focus on next year’s funding, he added.
“I am not certain that midyear we’ll be able to do something that will meet only one school district’s needs,” Pritzker said.
Biggs has pitched a five-year “financial recovery plan” that she said would convene local and state lawmakers to ensure the district no longer relies on borrowing and has cash on hand for two months’ expenses, among other goals.
There’s little disagreement among district boosters — including the board president candidates — that the state ought to fulfill its objective of fully funding schools. How to do it, however, is up for debate.
At the WFLD-Ch. 32 debate, Henderson said the district cannot go to Springfield “rattling the cage” and demanding money. Instead, the district should essentially help state lawmakers — including downstate legislators wary of helping Chicago — help itself, he has argued.
CTU-backed Dominguez has floated multiple ways Springfield could offer more money this year.
He has frequently exhorted the state to spend its “unexpected revenue” on schools. He has also argued that the state could raise progressive revenue, likely referring to more taxes on the wealthy, and even tap into a recent settlement Illinois and other states made with social-media giant Meta.
“I know about all of these things because I’m the only candidate that has actually gone down to Springfield and helped legislation get all the way through law,” Dominguez said at the same debate.
However, the state already used a major unexpected revenue source, a tax windfall from high gas prices, to balance this year’s budget. And after the Illinois Federation of Teachers called for the Meta settlement to fund schools, state Attorney General Kwame Raoul said it would be restricted to remedying social media harms and that calls for specific spending decisions were “premature.”
The state funding piece forms only part of the district’s puzzle. In recent years, district enrollment has declined while the budget has ballooned.
Still, tamping down costs through funding freezes, furlough days and staff layoffs presents another set of problems for district officials. And money-saving measures such as ending the moratorium on school closures next year remain a political third rail for board candidates and CPS stakeholders alike.
Dominguez has inveighed against any school closures whatsoever, referring to research that posits that closing neighborhood schools increases violence. Instead, he argues that if more children participate in the district’s lunch program, it could receive more money through federal reimbursements.
Henderson and Biggs have stayed open to closing schools, a stance sometimes stated in ambiguous terms. Any closures can only happen after being discussed with the people affected, they have said.
In their answers to a Tribune news division questionnaire, Dominguez and Biggs said the district should keep raising the property tax levy as much as possible. The district has few levers to raise its own revenue and has increased property taxes to the maximum levy for more than a decade. Both indicated unease, however, and hoped that other sources could eventually prevent increases.
Dominguez referred to continued property-tax hikes as “wickedness” at a WGN-TV overtime segment, and Biggs has said the state could pitch in more to a better-run district. Henderson, meanwhile, disagrees with the need to raise property taxes — at least until the district undergoes a forensic audit, a banner demand of his campaign.
His opponents have pushed back on Henderson’s auditing mantra because the district’s finances are already public, but he has persisted in his calls to root out potential waste.
“You have two folks who have raised taxes, or say they’re gonna raise taxes, and me saying that the taxes should not be raised one single iota unless and until CPS shows that that money’s being used properly,” Henderson said at a WGN-TV debate. “And right now I don’t believe it is.”
The Tribune’s Olivia Olander contributed.
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