Posts tagged balance budget
Chicago schools count on $435M in unrealized taxes to balance budget
August 7, 2026 // Stacy Davis Gates, president of the Chicago Teachers Union, asked the board before the vote to roll more assumed funding from other sources into the budget to prevent teacher layoffs and expand funding for schools. “The way that you're going to assume it for the mayor of Chicago. He signed up and he said, ‘yes,’ to the tune of a billion dollars. Who else can you assume as partners in this? Can you assume Maria Pappas? Can you assume Tony Preckwinkle? Can you assume J.B. Pritzker? Because we have people who assume it every day,” Gates said. The union repeatedly called on lawmakers to return for a special session to pass supplemental funding – a request made during the spring session, but not addressed before it ended.
State workers blast Ferguson’s furlough plan, calling it a betrayal
March 20, 2025 // Front-line workers and educators feel betrayed and frustrated that the man they helped elect wants to reduce their income while declining to endorse new or higher taxes on the state’s wealthiest individuals and largest corporations. “They feel they were lied to. We have to stop being the ones having the budgets balanced on our backs,” said Mike Yestramski, president of the Washington Federation of State Employees, following a rally Monday at the Capitol held by those pushing the Legislature to tax the wealthy and big businesses to erase the multi-billion dollar deficit. Yestramski called Ferguson a “pseudo Democrat” and added: “Budgets are moral documents. This is his moral test.