Chicago Public Schools officials and Chicago Teachers Union leaders were close to a contract agreement Thursday as all parties appeared exasperated by protracted negotiations that have dragged on for almost a year.
The day after a tense meeting at City Hall in which Mayor Brandon Johnson tried to broker a compromise, the school district returned to the bargaining table Thursday with new proposals on additional planning time for teachers and extra pay for veteran educators, sources close to negotiations told WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times. The two sides also continued discussing the frequency of evaluations for some teachers, the third and final outstanding issue.
The progress came as the Board of Education postponed a crucial vote Thursday on a proposed late-year amendment to the CPS budget that would have reimbursed City Hall for a long-disputed pension payment as well as funded a CTU agreement. At the start of the board’s monthly meeting at CPS’ downtown headquarters, board President Sean Harden announced that the amendment was withdrawn from the agenda because CPS and CTU were “extremely, extremely close” to a deal.
“This morning they met and considerable progress has been made,” Harden said. “I’m very pleased about that.”
He said the budget amendment would be brought back to a board vote “very soon.”
The vote was highly anticipated and had an uncertain outcome because the mayor’s office and CPS — which have been feuding over these budget challenges since the late summer — still haven’t agreed on how the district should pay for both a CTU contract and the pension reimbursement.
Johnson desperately needs the school board to approve the district’s pension payment to the city by March 31 in order to close his 2024 budget in the black — and he would like his allies at the CTU to land a contract without a strike. CPS CEO Pedro Martinez has refused to make the pension payment, arguing CPS doesn’t have enough money to cover both the pension and the CTU contract — so he had urged the board to reject the budget amendment and only fund the teachers contract.
The district would need an additional $240 million to cover both. The mayor’s office and an independent report by a financial firm suggested some options, such as additional borrowing or debt refinancing. But Martinez has not approved of any funding ideas so far, arguing they would be fiscally irresponsible.
The CTU had scheduled a news conference right before the board meeting to keep up the pressure for a deal. But union President Stacy Davis Gates and Vice President Jackson Potter didn’t attend as they continued trying to hammer out a deal. A member of the union held a sign at the presser that said “almost there.”