Welcome to Newswire — your weekly guide to Chicago government, civic action and what action we can take to make our city great, featuring public meeting coverage by City Bureau’s Documenters.

Quote of the Week

“We have a contract that did not require a strike. That is a significant development, considering up until this point, that is what it has taken us to get here.”

— Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates on the significance of the union’s latest contract agreement.

[Chicago Board of Education, April 24, 2025]

Finally in union

The Chicago Teachers Union finally has a new contract. After nearly a year of negotiations, the Chicago Board of Education voted 19-0 (with one member abstaining)   to approve the contract worth $1.5 billion over four years through June 2028. The terms are retroactive dating back to July 2024. 

The contract includes 4-5% cost-of-living raises in each of the four years, lower class sizes and additional funding for extracurricular programs and hundreds of additional staff positions. 

“At its core, this contract fairly rewards our excellent work of our educators, makes investments that are financially responsible for the district and keeps the best interest of our students at the forefront,” CPS CEO Pedro Martinez said. 

The board also approved an amendment to the FY 2025 budget to fund the first year of the contract. It will allocate $139 million in additional Tax Increment Financing (TIF) surplus funding.

“Some combination of increased revenue and reduced expenses will need to be reached to balance this budget,” Martinez said.

Due to the district’s projected $529 million budget gap, CPS has launched a campaign to advocate for the state to increase evidence-based formula funding as well as funding for nutrition, special education, transportation services across Illinois and support for early childhood education. 

What you can do:

Tell your representatives to fund public education: Want  to see more state funding to public schools in Chicago and Illinois? Find your representatives and call or email your state legislators here.

Studying the cops

After years of discussion, the Chicago Police Department is finally moving forward with  a study on police staffing – and police district councils will be involved, according to 24th Police District Council Chair Veronica Arreola. This will include collecting surveys from district council members about  what the study should focus on and where they'd like to see more officers deployed, Arreola told neighbors at a recent meeting.

The study has its roots in the 2019 federal consent decree to enact sweeping reforms of the department. Among the hundreds of reforms are several provisions detailing and clarifying how the department uses its nearly 12,000 officers. Deborah Witzburg, the city’s Inspector General, has previously said the department’s patrol staffing data is so incomplete that “CPD can’t tell how many cops are working where, citywide, on any given day,” the Reader reported.

24th Police District Council members hope to have a slideshow to go over the study in more detail at next month’s meeting, which is scheduled for May 21.

What you can do:

Find your Police District Council and attend a meeting:

  1. Find your local police district here.

  2. Head to chicago.gov and select your district’s specific page.

  3. Get acquainted with your district council members. Check out the Chicago Reader’s deep dive into each of the police district council candidates.

Catch up in the headlines:

A version of this story was first published in the April 30, 2025 issue of the Newswire, an email newsletter that is your weekly guide to Chicago government, civic action and what we can do to make our city great. You can sign up for the weekly newsletter here.

Have thoughts on what you'd like to see in this feature? Email Civic Editor Dawn Rhodes at dawn@citybureau.org.