Chicago Teachers’ Union wants $1B in city development funds to pay for teacher raises 

The Chicago Teachers’ Union (CTU) is pressuring city leadership to take $1 billion from a municipal development fund and give it to public schools.

CTU released a proposal Wednesday to deal with Chicago Public Schools’ (CPS) $500 million deficit for the 2024-25 school year. CPS’ annual budget is nearly $10 billion.

CTU’s plan is to eliminate TIFs (tax increment financing), which is when a municipality uses taxes from a new development to subsidize further development with the overall goal of boosting growth in struggling areas.

The union wants to cease such incentives and funnel the $1 billion currently set aside for TIFs into the public school system.

“We have identified $1 billion that can protect CPS students from paying the price for decades of racist underfunding,” CTU President Stacy Davis Gates said in a press release. “Our revenue recovery plan is necessary right now to stave off mass layoffs, school closings and more furloughs that will wreak havoc on our students and classrooms. 

“Chicagoans are not making the choice to prioritize TIF handouts over children.” 

But the CTU is arguably in a dilemma of its own making. 

Earlier this year, the union renegotiated its contract and fought for what critics consider outlandish and exorbitant terms, including: 

• Giving union members salary increases of 9% or more every year until 2028; 

• Providing eight weeks of paid leave for educators acting as gestational surrogates; 

• Providing 100% coverage for fertility treatments, including the storage of embryos, and 100% coverage for “abortion care”; 

• Offering full medical coverage and three-days paid leave for victims of “assault,” even if the assault is solely verbal, occurs off school grounds or on social media;  

• Providing financial assistance for new teachers to purchase a home; 

• Converting underutilized spaces into dormitories, shower and laundry facilities for unaccompanied youth; 

• Allowing public school buildings to be used as temporary housing for families, requiring the additional hiring of nighttime custodial staff and social service providers; 

• Requesting $2,000 in additional funding for each newcoming student of an asylum-seeking family; 

• And implementing a fleet of 100% electric buses. 

Gates admitted at the time the demands would cost $50 billion. 

Mayor Brandon Johnson also proposed taking out a $300 million high-interest loan to pay for teacher raises and pensions.  

But he isn’t entirely on board with the “de-TIF” plan either. 

“What I have been very clear about is that the TIF surplus, that belongs to the particular taxing bodies,” Johnson said. “I’m still very much committed to ensuring that those surpluses reach out classrooms.” 

Meanwhile, the city of Chicago itself has a budget deficit of nearly $1 billion.