DOWNTOWN — Ogden International School will keep all its teachers despite being asked to slash more than $1 million from its budget this week, the principal of the Downtown school said Tuesday.
The proposed budget Michael Beyer presented to his local school council Tuesday morning differed starkly from the one Chicago Public Schools released last week. While CPS' release showed Ogden receiving $1.2 million in new funding, the document Beyer presented Tuesday detailed a $1 million budget cut from last year.
"We have a tough budget but we're going to make it through," Beyer said.
The reason for the discrepancy is a recent change in how CPS allocates funding for special education. CPS once picked up the costs of special education and allocated such teachers to schools. Now those funds are included in individual school budgets, making it appear that the schools have more money to spend than they really do.
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The inconsistency was enough to motivate Ogden's LSCto decline approving a school budget before CPS' deadline Friday. The LSC will instead pick up the budget next month, affording themselves more time for review.
"I don't agree with the smoke and mirrors and [CPS] saying it's more when it's actually less," said Chris Hennessy, an Ogden LSC member.
A K-12 school with campuses in the Gold Coast and West Town, Ogden slashed its budget repeatedly last year, but was able to stave off layoffs thanks to a six-figure fundraising campaign, raising student fees and its lucrative parking leases to Gibsons Restaurant Group and a nearby church.
Beyer said Ogden's budget this school year has been slashed by eight percent from August, to about $11.8 million.
The school recently saved $180,000 by hiring two new assistant principals instead of three, and letting a long-vacant teacher assistant job remain unfilled, Beyer said. The school will otherwise pull from savings to keep the equivalent of a fulltime employee to stave off layoffs, he said.
Neither Beyer nor the LSC was aware of any "advantages or disadvantages" to delaying budget approval past Friday's deadline.
The school's budget — or the dynamic of next school year — could soon change anyway. CPS has to fill a $300 million budget hole by the end of August, and the specter of a teachers strike still looms as the Chicago Teachers Union negotiates a new contract.
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