How Seniors are Seeking Inclusion in Mayor Brandon Johnson’s Plan to Address $175M Budget Shortfall for Chicago Public Schools Pensions

CHICAGO (WLS) — Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is being vague about the city’s strategy to address a $175 million budget deficit before the end of the month. The shortfall is a result of an anticipated failure by CPS to reimburse the city for a pension payment.

Some Chicago City Council members are pushing the mayor to include them in the process.

In the scenario where Chicago Public Schools fail to return the pension payment, the city will wrap up the fiscal year on March 31 with a $175 million deficit. However, the mayor has not revealed a plan for managing this deficit.

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During a groundbreaking event for new housing in a Loop office building, Mayor Johnson used a sledgehammer. Nevertheless, he will need a more effective solution to tackle the $175 million budget gap if CPS does not repay the pension funds by the end of the month.

“Yea, well first of all I’m going to manage it, because that’s what leadership requires,” Johnson said.

But how the Mayor will manage it is a concern to many city council members. Eighteen have now signed a letter to the mayor calling for council authorization of any funding changes, instead of unilateral action by the mayor’s budget team.

“To say that he’s going to manage it, because that’s what he’s elected to do, isn’t enough,” 15th Ward Ald. Ray Lopez said. “We are the ones who appropriate the budget. We are the ones who take his word at the revenue projections and the expenditures. And now we have a problem, and we need to all get in the room and figure out how we’re going to move forward.”

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The mayor is saying that without a payment from CPS, everything is on the table to address the shortfall.

“I’m going to continue to work with my budget and finance team,” Johnson said. “We’re going to work with city council. I’ve had to manage these crises before. The fact of the matter, though, is is that we have these district entanglements with the school district and the Chicago Public Schools that we have to unravel.”

Alders want one of the mayor’s Springfield priorities to be getting lawmakers to formally move the city’s pension payment obligation to CPS.

“That should be priority number one, getting us out of this bind moving forward, so that we’re not having this annual financial crisis as to whether or not our newly elected partners over at the Board of Education are going to make good on the payment that they owe the citizens of the city of Chicago,” Ald. Lopez said.

So far, the mayor has not responded to the aldermanic letter, and time is running out to find a solution to the pension payment predicament.