Chicago Public Schools releases its $9.9 billion budget for 2024-25 school year

In releasing its proposed $9.9 billion budget, Chicago Public Schools announced Wednesday that the district balanced a deficit that ballooned from an initial projection of $490 million to $505 million, through district rather than school-level cuts.

However, the budget proposal which the Board of Education will vote on this month doesn’t include expected salary increases, with CPS currently negotiating new collective bargaining agreements with the Chicago Teachers Union and the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association. In a press release, the district said it anticipates “amending the budget at a later date” to reflect those costs.

Up from $9.4 billion last year, the $500 million increase in the total proposed budget reflects facility investments that are “vital to keeping facilities operating safely and smoothly,” according to CPS.

Representing the lion’s share of CPS spending, school budgets will cumulatively increase by $149 million compared to the start of last year – a margin that the district attributed to the cost of required services for special education students, state-mandated charter school funding increases and expanded bilingual services. Staff salaries and student benefits comprise nearly 70% of the total budget, which will fund more than 800 additional full-time employees this year, CPS announced.

“This budget very clearly puts teaching and learning front and center where it belongs,” CEO Pedro Martinez said in the district’s press release.

If approved, the proposed spending plan will take effect amid a second year of projected enrollment growth, with the district noting it’s not only serving more students, but specifically “serving more students with greater needs.” From the 2022-23 to 2023-24 school years, CPS said it enrolled an additional 12,000 students in temporary living situations; 10,000 more English Learners, who account for 27% of all district students; and an additional 4,000 students with disabilities, who represent approximately 15% of the CPS student population.

To balance the budget, CPS said it made cuts to central academic and operational departments, identified grants and restructured debt, among other strategies. But with the deficit expected to grow in coming years, CPS said it “continues to sound the alarm” on “funding inequities and inadequacies in state funding,” ranging from lacking state contributions to CPS teacher pension payments to shortfalls in the state’s assessments of the district’s special education and pre-kindergarten needs.

“Our dedicated staff and amazing students have proven what it takes to make progress and show amazing academic growth,” Board of Education President Jianan Shi said in a district press release. “Now we must all work together as the leaders supporting the state’s largest school district and post similar progress when it comes to securing the public education funding that will sustain and improve academic excellence for today and tomorrow’s Chicago students.”