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Chicago Public Schools (CPS) CEO Pedro Martínez says he believes his dispute with Mayor Brandon Johnson “should never have escalated” to this level of public acrimony because he thinks his goals for the school system are aligned.
“I never got into this fight. I wanted things to calm down,” Martinez said in a wide-ranging interview Wednesday with the Sun-Times.
“This has never been about a lack of alignment in vision. I always supported the mayor because he was the person who said, ‘We need to invest more in our schools.’ And I said, ‘Absolutely.’ And that has been my conversation with him from day one.”
But as funding remains insufficient, they disagree on how to proceed. The main source of friction is whether it is appropriate to apply for a short-term loan.
The mayor is pushing for a type of loan that would allow them to access cash before tax revenue arrives.
Martinez strongly opposes it, saying it carries high interest and would hurt the school district’s already poor credit rating, which dropped after a round of borrowing over the past decade. The mayor’s aides have said that was one of several options presented to Martínez. The other options are not publicly known.
Martinez said he could not, as an “ethical leader,” put the district further into debt “in a way that would be lasting and beyond any of our terms.”
“I’ve been working ethically, with integrity, providing information, always with the attitude of ‘maybe they don’t understand the risk of getting into debt.’”
The schools chief, instead, has asked for a record $462 million from special property tax districts to cover the entire projected shortfall for this school year. Johnson said he would give as much of those TIF funds as he could, but that amount could prove politically difficult for City Council members who rely on the money for development in their districts.
Martinez said the so-called tax increment financing (TIF) dollars would help CPS assume a payment for non-teaching school staff in the municipal pension fund that Johnson has imposed on CPS, as well as get a contract with the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU).
He said he plans to press City Council members on the TIF issue at an Oct. 22 hearing, as the City is entering budget season.
“I am confident that our councilors are reasonable and care about our district and our city. By the way, they also need this money. When they release a surplus from the TIF, 25% goes to the Municipality. “When we make this pension payment, it goes directly back to the city.”
Some who have supported Martinez over Johnson in recent weeks have suggested that CPS does not need more funding. Martínez disagrees.
“This is where I agree with both the mayor and our unions: the district is under-resourced and has been under-resourced for decades. In other words, I had insufficient resources when I was a student in the 70s and 80s,” Martínez highlighted.
“We can’t let Springfield get away with this. They didn’t create this, they inherited it, just like all of us. But we have to work together,” he said.
Both loans and TIFs would be one-time patches. That’s why the mayor and CPS say they are looking to Springfield for more sustainable, long-term solutions.
The CTU blamed Martinez for not going downstate earlier in the spring to push for more funding for CPS.
Martinez said Wednesday that City Hall was too focused on other issues, such as some CPS-related bills regarding an elected school board, police officers in schools and selective enrollment programs.
He added that officials in Gov. JB Pritzker’s office told Martinez and Board of Education President Jianan Shi in a “heated” meeting in May that CPS and the City did not appear to be aligned on funding. as its main legislative objective.
The current fight does not help CPS defend its case. But Martinez said he would like to go earlier in the spring session and make funding the top priority.
In negotiations with the CTU, Martinez said they have made progress, but he would not agree to all of the union’s requests regarding staffing and other financial issues because “we cannot put the district in financial difficulties.”
Martinez said he had a good relationship with the Board of Education members who announced their resignations last week, and “only they can answer” why they resigned. He said he is proud of their achievements together.
Martínez said the mayor asked him to resign, but he refused.
“I love this job and my goal is to finish my contract,” he said.
Translated by Gisela Orozco for The Voice Chicago
