Mayor Brandon Johnson called Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez and Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates on the carpet Wednesday afternoon in a bid to avert a strike and force the sides to settle a months-long fight over school district finances.
The rare convening of the three major players in a long-running power struggle over the fate of the school district’s finances came the day before a school board vote on a budget amendment that has been in the works for months.
The City Hall sitdown was the Johnson administration’s latest bid to settle the teachers contract amid steep obstacles on how to ensure the school district can afford a new deal. And it also placed the mayor more prominently at the center of the dispute, potentially meaning Chicagoans will blame him more if the talks fall apart.
The union leader and outgoing CPS CEO were joined by Board of Education President Sean Harden and the city’s Chief Financial Officer Jill Jaworski. A Johnson spokesperson added that mayoral allies Alds. Jason Ervin and Pat Dowell were also invited, but only Dowell attended.
At a City Hall press conference held after the meeting, Johnson gave off a bullish outlook on the outcome of the CTU contract and his borrowing plan.
“The goal of this meeting was to open up the conversation to look for potential compromise or compromises, to avert a work stoppage, to keep kids in the classrooms, keep parents at work, and of course, to keep our educators in our schools,” Johnson said. “There’s no reason for any of these outcomes when we are so close to landing a deal.”
The mayor contended that “less than $10 million” stands in the way of a CTU deal being inked, but he did not elaborate on his outlook for Thursday’s vote on the borrowing plan and pension payment.
Johnson also gave an implicit message to both sides of the bargaining table: It’s not the time for a strike.
“None of these issues that they need to settle will be worth the consequence of six, seven days or how many ever days out of school,” the mayor said when asked if he will urge the union president to stay at the bargaining table.
The mayor even confidently declared: “Quite frankly … I believe they should get it done tonight.”
At his own press conference afterward, Martinez said the meeting should not be conflated with contract negotiations and that his team “meets on a daily basis … weekends, holidays, whatever it takes.” To the mayor’s request that the contract be settled Wednesday, he said Johnson made that request clear.
“I wanted that a month ago, so join the club,” Martinez said.
During their dueling remarks, both sides stressed that the meeting was focused on settling the remaining issues on the CTU contract: teacher evaluations, class preparatory time and pay increases for veteran teachers.
Johnson cast those asks as “minute” and “really non-economic.” He swatted down the insinuation that the looming budget amendment vote was critical to that conversation.
In her remarks, CTU’s Davis Gates said Martinez has “never said he can’t fund the contract” and pointed to the protocol that a budget is typically amended after a contract agreement is reached. Martinez was “evasive” throughout the meeting, which ended when he “stormed out of the room,” Davis Gates said.
He is the only one invested in not ending this,” she said. “The meeting gave us a simple way to land the contract… that did not happen today, and I don’t understand why that did not happen.”
President Harden said afterward that he had called the meeting to “convene” all parties involved in the budget talks. He said there were “clear pathways … identified” and approved by several financial analysts, but could not specify what the pathways were.
“That’s not my sweet spot in terms of understanding all the options from a technical, financial perspective,” he said.
The meeting comes after a flurry of lobbying from union officials and city leaders, including the mayor, who has reached out to board members and even dedicated a full press conference to pressuring them to pass the amendment on Thursday.
The budget amendment, if passed, would open the door for the mayor’s office to take out a controversial loan for the cash-strapped school district. The amendment offers three options to fill a gap estimated by city officials to be about $240 million: extra money from tax increment financing districts allocated by aldermen based on need (also called TIF surplus), borrowing or cuts.
An outside financial report commissioned by Harden and released Tuesday confirmed that both cuts and borrowing carry risks — and that extra TIF money, released by aldermen, is unlikely. The report was requested by the board president after several financial analyses of the district’s finances had already been released and cost $35,000.
The city’s CFO, Jaworski, has repeatedly presented three different borrowing scenarios that she says are separate from taking out loans to balance CPS’ books. Those separate financial avenues could be paid back in anywhere from three, five to 10 years with expiring money in TIF districts, according to the CFO.
The public budget dispute dates back to last September when the mayor asked Martinez to step down over his refusal to take out a $300 million loan to cover the costs of a $175 million pension payment for non-teacher staff and a new teachers contract. Martinez passed the current school year budget in July, without accounting for either. CTU has been negotiating a new contract since last June.
In a remarkable move, Johnson’s hand-picked school board resigned in early October over the conflict and a new board appointed by the mayor voted to fire Martinez in late January.
A new, partially-elected, partially-appointed 21-member board is now dealing with the fallout of those unresolved budget woes. The amendment needs 14 votes — or two-thirds of 20 — to pass. President Harden only votes in a tie.
The city and CPS are, in many ways, financially entwined. The mayor’s office provides money to the district for capital projects and also allocates over 50% of its extra TIF money. And Johnson gave over $300 million in TIF surplus to CPS in December when he settled his budget by a razor-thin margin.
The city is legally obligated to make the pension payment to the Municipal Employees’ Annuity and Benefit Fund, and that responsibility shifted to CPS under former Mayor Lori Lightfoot as part of the process to transition to financial independence under a fully-elected board. After the amendment was published online on March 5, the mayor’s office said it applauded the language.
However, it reiterated that it would not borrow on behalf of CPS and expected the district to fulfill its obligation to the pension fund.
Alds. Ervin and Jeanette Taylor circulated a letter last Wednesday reiterating that demand, imploring Martinez to pay the pension payment.
“As an independent taxing body, it is your responsibility to present a full budget reflective of all expenses and we reject any attempts to pass the responsibility of balancing this budget onto the Council, or the taxpayers of Chicago, who we represent,” the letter reads.
After Martinez was fired in late December, he was granted a temporary restraining order against the school board for impeding his duties as CEO by attending ongoing contract negotiations with the district without his permission. Members aren’t allowed to attend negotiations without Martinez’s permission. Harden was one of the board members who attended negotiations then.
In November, Martinez was called into City Hall over similar, escalating disagreements about the school district’s tight budget.
Board Member Che “Rhymefest” Smith, of District 10, confirmed to the Tribune Wednesday afternoon that he planned to vote the budget amendment down.
“I don’t support taking out more loans that may even potentially be illegal to supplement a nonlegal obligation to the city,” said Smith.
Notably not invited was Ald. Jeanette Taylor, chair of the City Council’s Education Committee. Asked about Johnson’s choice to not bring her in, she said the role is “clearly not that important.”
“I really don’t got time to wonder why I was or wasn’t invited, I don’t care. I go where I’m invited. I go where I’m asked to go,” Taylor, 20th, said. “I don’t give my unsolicited advice, my advice costs. Don’t come to me when it comes apart. And that’s for everybody.”
Taylor said she hopes Martinez and Davis Gates can hammer out a contract “so our young people won’t be left out again.” But asked about not getting to be in the room, she insisted her focus was on her South Side ward.
“Y’all think I’m going to keep begging to support somebody who doesn’t need my support? Not going to do that,” she said. “It is cool to ask Black women for their advice after the fact. I’m not going to keep saying I told you so.”
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