Susana A. Mendoza: Our students deserve stable classrooms, not Brandon Johnson’s costly chaos

As the state’s chief fiscal officer — and as the proud parent of a Chicago Public Schools student — I, like most Chicagoans, am outraged at the reckless fiscal course Mayor Brandon Johnson is charting at Chicago Public Schools.

Chicago voters had their say Nov. 5, electing 10 new school board members. But before the voters’ choices have taken office, Johnson pulled a midnight coup with his current batch of hand-picked board members by voting to fire/sideline schools CPS CEO Pedro Martinez.

Martinez bravely stood up against Johnson’s plan to saddle our schools with a predatory, $300 million high-interest loan. The prior school board stood with Martinez against that loan, so Johnson forced those board members’ resignations and replaced them with more obedient members.

In addition to firing Martinez, those replacement members, presumably along with a new, loyal CEO, will rush to approve a contract for the mayor’s Chicago Teachers Union pals before the hybrid appointed/elected school board is seated Jan. 15.

Johnson and the CTU’s actions right before the holidays — when Chicagoans are beginning to unwind and spend time with their families — reek of cowardice.

An analysis by the Civic Federation shows that in fiscal 2025, CPS closed a $505 million deficit through a series of one-time mechanisms, meaning the budget is structurally imbalanced and the deficit could balloon to $900 million next fiscal year.

The analysis finds that CPS has not appropriately budgeted for the costs of a contract agreement with the CTU, which will be substantial. The Tribune reports that global ratings firm S&P put CPS on notice that it needed to find revenue or cut costs to fund a CTU contract. At the direction of the mayor, the school board has done neither and appears poised to take out the high-interest loan the mayor and his CTU benefactors wanted all along.

Unlike the city, we state officials have done the work to pay down the state’s debts, tackle the state’s pension shortfall, shore up our rainy-day fund and earn nine credit upgrades in the past three years. The state did not use one-time revenues for long-term costs like the city and the schools did.

Despite the hard work we have done, the state may face a projected $3 billion deficit in fiscal 2026. Yet the CTU and its hand-picked mayor will have you believe that going to Springfield and asking the state to bail out the city and CPS’ bad financial decision-making is a sound revenue strategy.

Let me be clear. It is not.

Not when the city has done nothing to cut costs and rein in profligate spending. The mayor’s prescribed approach of a high-interest, predatory loan instead of cost-cutting will invite credit rating downgrades that will saddle our children with higher costs they had no voice in taking on, spending more money on debt and less money in the classroom. Legislative leaders have rightly made clear that the votes are not there for a bailout.

This is the great irony of the CTU argument that Johnson advances. They argue that we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to fully invest in students. That sounds great. Who wouldn’t be on board with that? But the realities of that statement are high-interest borrowing that spirals to more high-interest borrowing, a constant cadence of kicking the can down the road and ultimately dire decisions around either state intervention or bankruptcy. This recklessness will jeopardize the progress that has been made at CPS over many years.

Under the current system, we have seen steady test score increases in reading and math. We have also seen freshman on-track rates and graduation rates rise dramatically. Now we are pivoting to a period of elected CPS leadership to carry the district forward. Is CPS perfect? Absolutely not, but the facts point to progress nonetheless.

With high-interest borrowing, we run the risk of stagnating academic achievement as more dollars will be needed to pay debt service.

Instead of nourishing our students’ long-term potential and increasing the talent pipeline, leading to a skilled workforce and economic growth, Johnson’s approach would do the opposite.

It’s time for the mayor to realize he doesn’t work for the CTU anymore. He works for the taxpayers of Chicago. And the decisions he is making now are irresponsibly benefiting his CTU overlords at the cost of the people he now represents.

Chicago, CPS and our children deserve predictability — not more chaos, drama and costly instability. The mayor needs to drop his push for a high-interest loan.

No contract with the CTU should be approved until the new board the voters have chosen is sworn in and board members are trained on the financial and long-term consequences of their votes.

The mayor must abstain from any role in negotiating the contract with his onetime employer and the main funder of his campaign — the CTU — because of his obvious and egregious conflict of interest.

Susana A. Mendoza is comptroller for the state of Illinois.