Ask The Mayor: July 2026

**Sasha-Ann Simons** (0:12)
Hey Chicago, I'm Sasha Ann Simons, and this is In the Loop.
Mayor Brandon Johnson is back in the studio for our monthly series, Ask The Mayor. This is when he spends the hour answering your questions and ours. And there's a lot to get to today. Winds are bringing smoke from Canadian forest fires to the area, making the air quality, well, terrible. Plus, arrests by federal immigration enforcement are on the rise again. The Chicago Police Department just lost its top cop, Larry Snelling. And the budget woes continue after the mayor's office released preliminary revenue numbers. Could we see another multi-million dollar budget gap? Well, speaking of budget gaps, Chicago Public Schools will lay off 760 teachers, 801 teacher aides, and 162 other staff in an effort to close the district's budget hole.
Now, we knew this was coming, but things just aren't looking good for Chicago residents, students, and education. So here's the mayor with his thoughts.

**Brandon Johnson** (1:16)
We have a school district that is woefully underfunded by the state of Illinois. The structure that the state of Illinois passed in 2017, calling for an equity-based funding structure, the law committed to fully funding our schools across the state by 2027 And here we are approaching 2027, and the state has not come through.
$1.6 billion is what the district rightfully deserves, based upon the funding formula mechanism that the state passed. You know, look, public education is something that is near and dear to my heart, as a former public school teacher, the first mayor in the history of Chicago to actually send my children to the public schools here, and to those workers and to those families that want schools to be a place where kids can thrive and grow and learn and develop, that is disheartening. And so, I'm going to continue to call on our state legislature, as well as our governor, to prioritize public schools in a way that fully funds them. Yesterday, the county board spoke emphatically about this as well. Chairman John Daly spoke emphatically about pushing the state of Illinois to come together with all stakeholders to make sure that our school district is fully funded so that we're not losing instruction, we're not losing educators, and we're not harming the most vulnerable amongst us.

**Sasha-Ann Simons** (2:48)
Yeah, you talked about reaching out to the state here. The CTU, other unions, school board members, and CPS officials are also calling for a special session in Springfield to address education funding. So far, though...

**Brandon Johnson** (2:59)
I think that's the right call.

**Sasha-Ann Simons** (3:00)
Yeah, state leaders have rejected those calls so far.

**Brandon Johnson** (3:03)
I mean, that's not surprising. I mean, this is not the first time the state of Illinois has rejected the idea of fully funding our schools. Here's what we do know. You don't fund them, these school communities disappear. We know that when we went through financial challenges two administrations ago, his answer was to close them.
And that didn't solve the financial challenges. In fact, everywhere a school was closed, violence actually went up. So if we're really talking about saving lives and improving the quality of life for the people who live in this city, the best way to do that is to invest in these schools. This notion, this idea that particularly as Democrats and Democrats who believe that we are the party that stands up for working people, how is it that in the state of Illinois, where we control every single lever and level of government, but yet here we have our public schools are woefully underfunded? It's time to act and it's time to act now.

**Sasha-Ann Simons** (3:58)
Can you say more about specifics that you will do in terms of working with the governor and leaders in Springfield?

**Brandon Johnson** (4:03)
I mean, I've been doing it, right? I released the largest TIF surplus in the history of Chicago into our public schools. I've done my part, right? I continue to organize with stakeholders. I'm working with the board members. This is not about what we're going to do.
This is about what has to happen, right? What else does a parent have to say? What else does a teacher have to say that just received a pink slip?
You understand what I'm saying? This idea that we have to do something else to conjoin people to actually invest in working people. I mean, I went on a hunger strike. Is that what we're asking people to do? I did that. I went on a hunger strike, right? I took a rest. People have organized across this city for decades to push for an elected representative school board. We got it. But people literally had to starve themselves. People had to go on strikes. Is that what we're asking working people to do? Is to starve themselves, to take a rest, go on strikes to actually have special education fully funded?