CPS FIELDS BUDGET QUESTIONS
Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s seven-member school board peppered Chicago Public Schools administrators with questions Tuesday at a pair of hearings meant to offer the public a chance to comment on the school district’s proposed budget for the new fiscal year.
The dual sessions at the downtown CPS headquarters — one at 4 p.m. and another at 6:30 p.m. — focused on the district’s operating budget plan, which divvies dollars for schools’ day-to-day needs.
Between both hearings, six of the seven board members asked questions, while in the second session, board President Miguel Del Valle went back and forth with CPS CEO Janice Jackson on funding of schools with declining enrollment.
The district announced in the spring — and laid out in this budget — that 219 schools with low or declining enrollments, which have been hurt by per-pupil funding formulas, will get more money via $31 million in “equity grant funding.”
Still, Del Valle worried that schools could be hurt even with the extra help — a point that CPS assistant budget director Michael Sitkowski confirmed when he said about a quarter of CPS schools would see decreased funding from last year.
“I would argue that those schools are actually getting the same amount, if not more, because we’re actually giving them more money than they originally would have been allocated based on their student-based budgeting,” Jackson said.
“I understand that, that’s what the equity grants are for,” Del Valle responded. “But how many of those schools are seeing a dramatic decline in this year’s budget?”
Jackson said she could look into finding an exact number but that the equity grants were an effort on the part of CPS to offset those losses.
The $7.7 billion budget proposal released this month was about $117 million larger than last year’s, making it the district’s largest ever.
The majority of the questions from the school board were asked of CPS Chief Talent Officer Matt Lyons about social workers, nurses, case managers and librarians — the shortage of which has been a hot topic.
Lightfoot and Jackson touted a plan last month to hire “at least” 200 social workers and 250 nurses within the next five years, on which Lyons said a “down payment” is included in this year’s budget.
Critics, among them the Chicago Teachers Union, said promises for new hires have been made in the past, only for job vacancies to remain open.
About a dozen public speakers commented on the budget through the two hearings Tuesday, the majority of them from the CTU.
Three additional simultaneous hearings are set to be held at different schools Wednesday for public discussion of the capital budget. Those hearings will be from 6 to 8 p.m. at: Amundsen High School, 5110 N. Damen Ave.; Morgan Park High School, 1744 W. Pryor Ave.; and Whitney Young Magnet School, 211 S. Laflin St.