Mayor Brandon Johnson will fill an empty seat on Chicago’s faculty board earlier than Thursday’s essential finances vote by which he wants the vast majority of members to decide to masking a controversial municipal pension cost.
Ángel Vélez is a range, fairness and inclusion advisor with a doctorate in training coverage, group and management, from the College of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He’ll be sworn in at Thursday’s board assembly to characterize District 9A on the South Aspect, a seat that has been empty since June.
In an announcement, Vélez stated he brings his skilled expertise and lived expertise as an Afro-Latino man who went to Clemente Excessive Faculty in Humboldt Park and now lives in West Englewood. His baby attends a Chicaog public faculty.
Much like final yr, the mayor and CPS officers are at odds over the varsity district’s finances. However as issues stand, the mayor probably doesn’t want Vélez’s vote to prevail: A majority of the 21-member board — Johnson’s appointees and elected allies — have backed Johnson’s model of the finances for this faculty yr.
The finances will be authorised with a majority vote. The president of the board solely votes to interrupt a tie.
District officers spent the summer time grappling with a $734 million deficit. Along with making different cuts, their finances proposal this month known as for the $175 municipal pension cost — which covers non-teacher CPS workers — to be paid provided that the town or state offered more money to CPS. Johnson wants the municipal pension cost as a way to finish the present fiscal yr within the black.
Interim CEO/Supt. Macquline King, who was employed from the mayor’s workplace, has not publicly commented on the finances, although district officers take path from her.
On the identical time, CPS is relying on the town pulling $379 million out of tax-increment financing districts, or TIFs, to stability its personal finances. TIF cash is put aside for financial improvement initiatives in neighborhoods, however whether it is uncommitted, the town can pull the funds again into the working finances. CPS will get 52% of the quantity that’s recovered from TIFs and the town will get 23%.
On the day CPS officers launched their finances proposal earlier this month, 11 of 20 voting members signed a letter saying they might discover it troublesome to help a finances that doesn’t make it clear that CPS will make the municipal pension cost.
The board members who signed the letter stated they didn’t suppose CPS may rely on that large of a TIF quantity from Metropolis Corridor with out promising the municipal pension cost in return. To make each occur, they need CPS to go away the door open to taking out a mortgage to cowl the extra prices, if wanted. Within the letter, they stated “leaving it out at this stage would unnecessarily restrict our flexibility.”
A number of different board members say CPS shouldn’t make the pension cost as a result of it’s the metropolis’s duty, they usually’re in opposition to the mortgage as a result of CPS already carries a excessive debt load and future generations should pay it again.
Sarah Karp covers training for WBEZ. Observe her on X @WBEZeducation and @sskedreporter.
