In an urgent plea in their last public meeting before the April 4 mayoral runoff, Chicago Public Schools officials and Board of Education members on Wednesday called on the next mayor to secure more state funding for the city’s schools and fix structural funding problems as an impending deficit of more than half-billion-dollars looms over the shrinking district.
Officials laid bare the dire circumstances facing CPS in the near future, starting with a $628 million deficit in the 2025-26 school year that’ll grow to three-quarters of a billion dollars soon after. Federal pandemic relief funding has papered over long-standing issues, but that money is set to run out in two years.
