Budget Committee cancels Thursday hearing called to turn up heat on embattled CPS CEO Pedro Martinez
After a complaint from the City Council’s only Jewish member, the Budget Committee has canceled plans to summon embattled Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez to a hearing on Rosh Hashanah to explain why he is refusing to absorb a $175 million pension payment for non-teaching school employees.
Thursday is Rosh Hashanah, the first full day of the Jewish New Year. It is one of the holiest days in the Jewish calendar.
The hearing was canceled shortly after Ald. Debra Silverstein (50th) complained to Budget Chair Jason Ervin (28th) about such an important meeting being held when she would be unable to attend.
“I was one of the aldermen who signed the letter that he should stay on. … To go down that route when we have budget upon us, when we have elections upon us, when the school year just started, [is a mistake]. Right now, I am on the side of Pedro Martinez,” Silverstein said Tuesday.
Silverstein credited Ervin for responding quickly about the holiday conflict. She argued, however, that it should have been flagged by a Mayor’s Office of Intergovernmental Affairs that has been in turmoil ever since director Sydney Holman resigned.
Holman resigned to protest Mayor Brandon Johnson’s decision to make former United Working Families Director Kennedy Bartley her boss.
“They should have been aware because I do send a calendar of all the holidays every single year to every single department in the city so everybody has those dates. There’s no reason why [Intergovernmental Affairs] didn’t have that as a red flag,” Silverstein said.
Ervin said the mistake was his. He meant no disrespect.
“My colleague called me and told me it was Rosh Hashanah. I apologized and so, we’re rescheduling the meeting. That’s what happened,” Ervin told the Sun-Times.
He’s working with Martinez and his team to reschedule quickly. Ervin still believes it's borderline “malfeasance” for Martinez to have pushed through a $9.9 billion school budget that does not include the $175 million pension payment the city had absorbed until then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot shifted it to CPS.
“I would like for them to make the payment. … These are their employees. This is 100% their obligation,” Ervin said.
At the time Lightfoot shifted the pension payment to CPS, Johnson worked as a paid organizer for the Chicago Teachers Union, which sharply criticized the move. Now that Johnson is mayor, his stance has changed.
The school system, however, had to close its own $505 million deficit this year. That’s why Martinez and Johnson’s hand-picked school board rejected the mayor’s request to take out a $300 million short-term, high-interest loan to cover the cost of both the pension payment and a new teachers union contract.
That’s one reason Johnson has asked Martinez to resign.
Unless the board does an about-face, the city’s 2025 budget shortfall will balloon to $982.4 million, and Chicago will end 2024 with a $223 million deficit. That could force the mayor to extend his hiring freeze indefinitely, seek union concessions that include furlough days or even order layoffs, cancel projects and break his campaign promise to hold the line on property taxes. Johnson has warned that “sacrifices will be made.”
Earlier this week, Johnson pushed back the unveiling of his 2025 budget until Oct. 30.
The two-week delay buys time for either the current school board members or a board shrunken by impending resignations to approve the loan. By playing hide-the-ball on what’s expected to be yet another record or near-record tax increment financing surplus, Johnson keeps the heat on the school board to reverse itself.
The mayor balanced his first budget by declaring a record $434 million TIF surplus, with more than half the money going to CPS.
"I can't comment on whether waiting strengthens or doesn't whoever's hand. All I know is that, we've got a $350 million obligation sitting out there that's gonna get socked to Chicago taxpayers if the board does not do what it should," Ervin said.