Beyond the Budget Vote: What's Next for Fixing CPS Finances?

Yesterday, Chicago Public Schools Superintendent/CEO Macquline King announced that the school district had revised its estimate of TIF surplus revenue from the City of Chicago upward, to $285 million. The additional $85 million is enough to eliminate five furlough days the district had proposed to cut costs.

"CPS has received at least $200 million in TIF surplus every year since 2023. In fact, CPS received a net of over $400 million last year," King wrote in a budget update published yesterday on the CPS website and emailed to families. "Based on this recent trend, we feel confident in revising our revenue expectation in order to eliminate furlough days for next year."

The announcement came one day after SEIU Local 73 sent King a letter demanding the elimination of the furlough days and a better explanation of their TIF surplus estimate.

In a statement, CTU President Stacy Davis Gates called the revised budget "obviously inadequate," praised King for "opening the amendment process to make it better," and advised the school board to "take this amendment and continue to make it better, fix it, or delay the vote until the budget addresses our students' needs."

The school board's Thursday meeting agenda includes four financial items: a vote on the FY 2027 operating budget, a vote on the FY 2027 capital budget for school repairs and construction, a vote on the property tax levy for schools, and a vote to authorize $1.65 billion in short-term borrowing that will be repaid as property tax revenue arrives over the coming year.

Based on conversations with five board members across the board's political spectrum, it seems likely this revised budget will pass on Thursday. The phrase I heard repeatedly was "there's no other option," given that CPS must have a 2027 budget in place to apply for the short-term loans it needs to make payroll in September.

The board and school district are also working on various next steps, from efforts to allow CPS to tap into Cook County's no-interest bridge loans for school districts and other taxing bodies whose cash flow has been disrupted by delays in collecting and distributing property taxes, to a long-awaited new hire to lead the school district's lobbying in Springfield.

Yesterday, the Illinois Federation of Teachers (which is led by CTU president Stacy Davis Gates) announced it has filed a lawsuit against Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas. In its filing, the IFT is seeking both a court order to force the Treasurer's Office to disburse all tax funds in its possession and to compensate school districts for money they lost due to the delays.

It remains unclear whether Chicago's players—school district, board, teachers union, and mayoral administration—can come together to convince Springfield to step up its support for schools. This could be by increasing funds for schools statewide, or simply by boosting the state's pension payment to CPS in line with the share of pension it pays to school districts that are part of the state teacher retirement system--a move that would save CPS about $600 million annually. The pension shift would most likely come through a merger between the Chicago and state pension funds, which the Chicago Teachers Union has historically opposed.

A new poll commissioned by Kids First Chicago shows Chicagoans support both additional revenue for CPS and better management of its existing resources. As Michaelan Valesky, manager of data science for Kids First, said in a statement, "The poll makes clear that Chicagoans expect more than a short-term budget fix."

There's been a lot of media coverage of the CPS budget and fiscal situation. To go deeper into the topic, Board Rule recommends these recent stories:

• WBEZ's Sarah Karp takes a deep dive into special education spending. Since 2019, spending to meet the needs of students receiving special education services has nearly doubled. Though the school district is required by law to provide these services, federal and state money to pay for them has not kept pace with the increased need. Karp's reporting also shows that meeting these needs was the primary reason CPS hired more staff over the last seven years, even as overall student enrollment shrank.
• Chalkbeat's Mila Koumpilova examines a perennial target for cost-cutting: middle management, known in CPS as network offices. Last year the network offices cost the district $40 million. Though that's not big bucks in a nearly $10 billion budget, debate persists about the networks' effectiveness in supporting schools.
• Chalkbeat also has the latest on changes in school-level staffing. More than 200 schools will actually gain staff, mostly due to adding personnel to meet the needs of students receiving special education services. About 270 schools will lose staff.

Candidate Updates

Yesterday, as Chalkbeat Chicago reported, the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners ruled on 11 outstanding petition challenges involving school board candidates. Here's how those rulings affected the races.

Board President: Hilario Dominguez and Victor P. Henderson will both be on the November ballot, joining Jessica Biggs, Jennifer Custer, and Sendhil Revuluri.

District 1a: Incumbent Ed Bannon is on the ballot. He faces challenger Margie B. Luczak.

District 2a: Challenger Hector Morales is on the ballot. He faces incumbent Debby Pope and a second challenger, Kyna Lenhof.

District 3a: Incumbent Norma Rios-Sierra is on the ballot. She faces challenger Pete Gonzales.

District 3b: Challenger Jason Dónes is on the ballot. He faces incumbent Carlos Rivas.

District 6a: Incumbent Anusha Thotakura and challenger Brenda Lee Anderson are both on the ballot. Challenger Isaiah White is also on the ballot.

District 6b: Michael L. Neal is on the ballot, facing Brittany B. Kimble in the race for this open seat.

District 7b: Incumbent Yesenia Lopez is on the ballot. She faces challenger Erika E. Diaz-Chavez.

District 10a: Challenger Tameka Walton will not appear on the ballot, but has said she will continue her campaign as a write-in candidate. She is challenging incumbent Che "Rhymefest" Smith.

Dominguez Campaign Finance Flap, Continued

Last week, Board Rule reported that school board presidential candidate Hilario Dominguez filed a required campaign finance disclosure report for the quarter ending June 30 that showed he neither spent nor received any funds between early June (when his campaign was legally organized) and the end of the month. As reported by 'Chalkbeat Chicago, Hugo Jacobo, a political consultant working with Sendhil Revuluri's campaign, filed a complaint with the Illinois State Board of Elections charging that the Friends of Hilario Dominguez quarterly report "cannot be accurate."

On July 18, three days after the filing deadline for the quarterly report, Dominguez filed two reports listing contributions of $1000 or more. (You can find links to both reports here.) The two reports list a total of six in-kind contributions of services paid for by CTU PAC (Illinois Federation of Teachers). They include:

$5,600 in consulting provided by Senior Wizdom Consulting, whose address is the West Side home of former alderman Isaac Carothers, who resigned in 2010 after pleading guilty to federal corruption charges.

$8,250 in contracted services provided by Moving Forward Strategies, LLC, which is registered to Karina Escobar Perez at an address in West Englewood. In December 2025, an Illinois woman named Karina Escobar Perez pleaded guilty to felony charges of forging petition signatures in an effort to get short-lived Democratic presidential candidate Dean Phillips on the 2024 ballot in Indiana.

$16,825 in contracted services provided by Goshen Impact Services, a political consultancy owned by longtime community organizer Bamani Obadele, who in 2005 resigned from his post as a deputy director of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services in a contracting scandal. He later pled guilty to federal corruption charges.

Events

Tonight, 6 p.m.: Kids First Chicago hosts a virtual info session on the Chicago Public Schools FY 2027 budget. Speakers include: Danny Vesecky (Civic Federation), Heather Wendell (Chicago Education Alliance), Claiborne Wade (Kids First Chicago/Austin CAC), and Nicole Upton (Ingenuity). Register here.

July 31, 10 a.m.-2 p.m.: 20th Ward Back to School Bash, 5401 S. Wentworth Ave.

August 1, 10 a.m.-1 p.m.: Chicago Urban League Back to School Festival, 4510 S. Michigan Ave. Details here.

August 6, 7 p.m.: BUILD Coffee and Chicago Black Voter Project host a conversation with scholars David Stovall and Eve Ewing, followed by a community conversation about priorities for the elected school board. First Presbyterian Church, 6400 S. Kimbark. Register here.

Candidate Events

Michelle Pierre, 1b: Campaign Kickoff, 5:30-7:30 p.m., Wed., July 29, Trattoria Poretta, 3656 N. Central Ave. 

Juan Ignacio Gonzalez, 8b: Campaign Kickoff, 6-9 p.m., Thurs., July 30, South Side Sociál, 4432 S. Ashland Ave.

Kate Dunneback, 9b: Campaign Launch Party, 6:30 p.m., Thurs., July 30, Two Mile Coffee Bar, 9907 South Walden Parkway.

Karen Zaccor, 4a: 70th Birthday Bash Campaign Fundraiser, 5:30-8:30 p.m., Fri., July 31, Lightwriter’s Neon Chicago, 4222 N. Ravenswood.

Jesus Ayala Jr., 7a: Back-to-School Community Reception, 6–8 p.m., Thurs., August 13,  PACH 21, 2141 W. 21st Street, 2nd Floor.