Mayor Brandon Johnson will fill an empty seat on Chicago’s school board before Thursday’s critical budget vote in which he needs the majority of members to commit to covering a controversial municipal pension payment.
Ángel Vélez is a diversity, equity and inclusion consultant with a doctorate in education policy, organization and leadership, from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He’ll be sworn in at Thursday’s board meeting to represent District 9A on the South Side, a seat that has been empty since June.
In a statement, Vélez said he brings his professional experience and lived experience as an Afro-Latino man who went to Clemente High School in Humboldt Park and now lives in West Englewood. His child attends a Chicaog public school.
Similar to last year, the mayor and CPS officials are at odds over the school district’s budget. But as things stand, the mayor likely does not need Vélez’s vote to prevail: A majority of the 21-member board — Johnson’s appointees and elected allies — have backed Johnson’s version of the budget for this school year.
The budget can be approved with a majority vote. The president of the board only votes to break a tie.
District officials spent the summer grappling with a $734 million deficit. In addition to making other cuts, their budget proposal this month called for the $175 municipal pension payment — which covers non-teacher CPS staff — to be paid only if the city or state provided extra money to CPS. Johnson needs the municipal pension payment in order to end the current fiscal year in the black.
Interim CEO/Supt. Macquline King, who was hired from the mayor’s office, has not publicly commented on the budget, though district officials take direction from her.
At the same time, CPS is counting on the city pulling $379 million out of tax-increment financing districts, or TIFs, to balance its own budget. TIF money is set aside for economic development projects in neighborhoods, but if it is uncommitted, the city can pull the funds back into the operating budget. CPS gets 52% of the amount that’s recovered from TIFs and the city gets 23%.
On the day CPS officials released their budget proposal earlier this month, 11 of 20 voting members signed a letter saying they would find it difficult to support a budget that does not make it clear that CPS will make the municipal pension payment.
The board members who signed the letter said they didn’t think CPS could count on that big of a TIF amount from City Hall without promising the municipal pension payment in return. To make both happen, they want CPS to leave the door open to taking out a loan to cover the additional costs, if needed. In the letter, they said “leaving it out at this stage would unnecessarily limit our flexibility.”
Several other board members say CPS should not make the pension payment because it is the city’s responsibility, and they’re against the loan because CPS already carries a high debt load and future generations will have to pay it back.
Sarah Karp covers education for WBEZ. Follow her on X @WBEZeducation and @sskedreporter.