NW Side Chicago school board member Ed Bannon holds education budget-related meeting

by BRIAN NADIG

Finding ways to increase funding for public education without raising property taxes is a top goal for Chicago School Board District 1A member Ed Bannon.

The annual projected budget deficit for the Chicago Public Schools is $520 million in 2027 and as high as $835 million in 2030, and “that keeps me up at night,” Bannon said at a March 31 town hall meeting he hosted at Hitch School, 5625 N. McVicker Ave. About 50 people attended the meeting.

Bannon is in his second year on the new school board, which consists of 10 elected members and 10 members and a chair appointed by the mayor. Bannon was appointed to his seat but will be running for the seat on Nov. 3 when all 21 positions are for up for election.

District 1A includes Edgebrook, Wildwood, Gladstone Park, Forest Glen, Norwood Park, Dunning and parts of Jefferson Park and Sauganash.

The board is asking tough questions on expenditures and providing the oversight which lacked when a mayor could appoint the entire board and get their way on important decisions, according to Bannon.

“None of that happens” without the law requiring an elected school board in Chicago, state Senator Robert Martwick (D-10) said at the town hall meeting. Martwick was a main sponsor and author of the law, which was approved about 5 years ago.

The CPS annual budget is about $10 billion, almost triple the budget for the entire state of Iowa, and it’s important to have an elected school body whose members oversee the budget and must answer to the voters, Martwick said.

Bannon said that about $5 billion of the budget goes toward instruction and other classroom expenses, and the other $5 billion to pensions, debt service, charter schools, capital improvements and other items. “There’s not a lot of fat to remove from the meat,” he added.

About 48 percent of the CPS budget comes from property taxes and 27 percent from state aid, according to Bannon.

At the meeting Delvan Willis of the People’s Lobby gave a presentation on how the state can increase revenue by up to a few billion dollars, some of which Willis said could go toward public education. The groups describes itself as believing that the needs of “all people and the planet” should take precedence over the interests of “corporations and the wealthy elite.”

Potential revenue streams could from a wealth tax, a millionaire surtax, a renewed push for a graduated income tax, capital gains reform and closing corporate tax loopholes, according to the People’s Lobby.

One of the legislative bills under consideration in Illinois call for a digital ad tax.

Willis said that the bill would help update the state’s taxing laws. “We didn’t have digital ads 30 years ago and now we do,” he said.

“Big tech” corporations are making billions of dollars on “our personal data” and the state is not receiving tax revenue from that. Under one proposal, corporations making at least $150 million from digital ads would have to pay a 10 percent tax on those ads.

State Representative Lindsey LaPointe (D-19), who is sponsoring a bill on overhauling corporate tax loopholes, said that residents can meet with their local representatives to discuss their educational and other concerns, whether in Springfield on a lobby day or at their district office.

In the coming months the General Assembly will be discussing the governor’s proposed $56 billion budget, which includes $649 million in new revenue.

Ways to increase the revenue streams will be part of the budget negotiations. “We definitely need more funding for K-12 education,” LaPointe said.

Residents at the meeting discussed the need for more finding for the Onahan School sports field, whose poor condition has led to at least two injuries that required surgery, according to one parent.

Another meeting attendee said that schools are tired of wondering at the start of each school year if certain positions, especially special education classroom assistants, will be funded.

“You’re treading water year to year,”

Bannon said.

Bannon plans to hold another town hall meeting at 2 p.m. Sunday, April 19, at Roden Library, 6083 N. Northwest Hwy.

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