Chicago Public Schools leaders announced drastic plans Wednesday to close the district’s massive deficit, including laying off 760 teachers, 801 teacher aides and 162 central office and citywide staff.
The district also plans to freeze spending midyear and furlough staff for five days that students were not supposed to be in attendance, such as those that were set aside for planning, training or report card pickup.
Not paying staff for five days would save the district around $85 million, but staff would experience a 2.3% pay cut, which for the average teacher translates to about $2,300.
CPS has not furloughed staff in a decade, and the CTU and other staff unions are likely to challenge them, as they would eliminate some of their negotiated pay raises.
District officials said the spending freeze and furloughs won’t take place until the second half of the school year and could be prevented if the city, county or state comes up with more money for CPS — likely a bid to capture the attention of lawmakers and other officials who have so far ignored pleas for more funding.
On Wednesday, CPS Supt. Macquline King said that the district “is facing serious financial challenges” and there are tradeoffs in the budget.
“These are all impacts that are disruptive to the education of our students, the learning experience, and ultimately the academic outcomes that we’re projecting for next year,” said King, who is also the district’s CEO.
Still, she described it as a “responsible” and “entirely student-centered” budget that would prevent the district from taking on more debt and interest payments, which would hurt future classroom spending. And she noted that some of the district’s financial problems are not of its own making.
“Enrollment is declining while, at the same time, the needs of our students are growing,” she said. “Funding at the state and federal level has not kept up with these growing needs.”
CPS must pass a balanced budget by the end of August and officials have spent months trying to close a $732 million deficit. Wally Stock, CPS treasurer and acting CFO, told board members last month that the district should pass a budget in July because it is so short on cash that it urgently needs a short-term loan to keep the district running and pay staff. The district must have a budget in place to get those loans.
Stacy Davis Gates, president of the Chicago Teachers Union, called the budget “dead on arrival” even before CPS officially released it.
“Students have had to learn in overcrowded classes, practice under unpaid coaches, and be counseled by caseworkers with loads beyond compare all year, and now CPS thinks they can plan a week of furloughs and tell the staff who serve them they don’t have a job? Please,” Gates said in a statement.
CPS officials are especially hopeful that the city will bail out the school district as it did last year by pulling a record amount of money out of special taxing districts called TIFs. When city officials decide TIF funds are not needed for economic development projects, they can declare a surplus and disperse that money to taxing bodies, like CPS.
City council members, however, often have plans for any extra TIF dollars and want to hold onto them. When Chicago Mayor Johnson declared a record $1 billion TIF surplus last year, city council members initially fought against giving it to CPS.
And it’s unclear how much TIF funding might be available to CPS. The city does not announce how much it plans to declare as surplus until the fall.
A growing chorus, including the CTU, other unions, school board members and CPS officials, are pushing for Gov. JB Pritzker and state lawmakers to call a special session to increase education funding. They say it’s not an unreasonable request, since lawmakers were willing to do it for negotiations over the Chicago Bears’ football stadium.
So far, state leaders have rejected those calls. But King said she is still hopeful that the state and city will come through.
“This will require a unified call to action,” she said. “My hope is that in the next few months, we will all come together in a joint advocacy … in the service of our Chicago’s children.”
The announcement that CPS is laying off 760 teachers was expected. When principals received their staff allocations for the 2026-27 school year back in May, they were told that the district would raise the student-to-teacher ratio to save money. An analysis by WBEZ found that would likely result in about 700 fewer teachers.
The school district also is cutting some teachers and aides due to enrollment declines or a decrease in how much special education support and services students need at individual schools.
Many of the teachers and aides who are losing their jobswere already informed by their principals, though official layoff notices will go out Wednesday. District officials note that most laid-off staff get rehired by CPS, because positions open up when staff quit or retire.
Ben Felton, chief of talent, said that the overall number of aides and teachers is actually going up, largely because of rising special education needs across the district.
CTU sent CPS leaders a letter Wednesday requesting bargaining over its planned layoffs. The letter called on the district to take legal action against the Cook County treasurer because the office has been delayed in releasing the property taxes that CPS and other government entities rely on to make payroll.
CPS faced a massive deficit in last year’s budget, too. Officials closed that $734 million gap after months of contentious debate through staff cuts, debt refinancing and tapping into one-time funding sources, like $550 million in TIF funding from the city.
CPS laid off 500 custodians, 250 lunchroom workers, over 100 crossing guards and dozens of office workers. The district also slashed central office staff and instituted a hiring freeze.
At the time, CPS’ budget director said that there was no more “low hanging fruit” to cut and that future cuts would have to impact classrooms.