Mayor Brandon Johnson refused to resign from his place at Chicago Public Schools after a high-ranking CPS official raised moral considerations a few potential battle of curiosity, in line with a memo obtained by the Tribune.
CPS Chief Talent Officer Ben Felton wrote a memo lower than two months after the mayor’s May 2023 inauguration documenting conversations Felton had with Johnson’s deputy mayor for training, Jen Johnson, about their leaves from Chicago Teachers Union. Union members might generally take leaves of absence to do different work and return later.
In the memo, dated June 28, 2023, Felton wrote that he informed Deputy Mayor Johnson, who just isn’t associated to Mayor Johnson, that “it was doubtlessly a battle of curiosity for Mayor Johnson and Deputy Mayor Johnson to stay on go away at CTU from CPS .”
Felton stated he was “involved that it is likely to be a possible battle of curiosity for the mayor to be an worker of a corporation that he was overseeing (by way of the Board of Education appointment).”
“My main concern is that the Mayor and Deputy Mayor are capable of safe future employment with CPS in the event that they select to return to the District, as our present apply is to position staff getting back from a CTU go away into the employment pool. academics reassigned,” Felton wrote. “While I think about it’s unlikely that Mayor Johnson will return to the classroom, this isn’t an intangible profit.”
Since being elected, Johnson has appointed greater than a dozen new members to the varsity board.
Felton urged that Mayor Johnson resign from CPS and that Deputy Mayor Johnson take a private go away.
In May 2023, Deputy Mayor Johnson stated the mayor “didn’t need to go away his place to sign his help for training and academics,” in line with the memo.
In early June, Felton really useful that Deputy Mayor Johnson converse with the town’s ethics advisor. Ten days later he was informed that the particular person “had no considerations about being on go away from CTU and would ‘keep the established order for now,'” in line with the memo.
Johnson’s press secretary, Erin Connelly, informed the Tribune this week that the mayor is “not a member of the CTU.” It stated he terminated each his employment and his membership of the academics union in April 2023. “His go away standing on the CPS is much like that of different public servants who beforehand served in different areas of the general public service equivalent to CPD, CFD and CPS as academics. There isn’t any battle,” he stated.
When the Tribune requested about Johnson’s standing at CTU in early November, Connelly stated, “Currently, the mayor is clearly not employed at CTU however can also be on go away, legally, at CPS.”
Connelly additionally stated final month that Johnson’s former deputy mayor for training, Jen Johnson, who took a go away of absence from her City Hall submit in October, was not employed or on go away from work at CTU.
The legal professional for CPS CEO Pedro Martinez included the notice in his newest court docket submitting difficult the varsity board’s try to fireside him and diminish his position because the district’s chief.
Felton’s concern displays a bigger political impediment Johnson confronted as mayor. Johnson served for years as a high-ranking academics union official, and the highly effective labor group spent thousands and thousands to help his marketing campaign.
As a candidate, Johnson sought to reassure the general public that he can be mayor for everybody and that he could possibly be an sincere dealer with the union.
In a March 2023 runoff debate, Johnson responded to a query about his marketing campaign’s heavy reliance on CTU funds by promising to go away his position within the union and “be the mayor of the town of Chicago for everybody.”
“I’ve a fiduciary accountability to the folks of the town of Chicago, and as soon as I’m mayor of the town of Chicago, I’ll not be a member of the Chicago Teachers Union,” Johnson stated. “I’ll not pay dues to the Chicago Teachers Union. I’ll have the very best job on this planet, being an envoy for a world-class metropolis, particularly as we tackle the essential points.”
But as mayor he repeatedly confronted accusations of favoritism towards the academics union. This line of criticism has steadily gathered because it turned public this fall that Johnson and the CTU had squared off in opposition to Martinez after he refused to take out a high-interest mortgage to cowl a disputed pension cost, in addition to the start of subsequent 12 months. academics’ union contract.
Since then, Johnson has struggled to oust Martinez, a member of former Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration, and needed to appoint and reappoint his college board appointees till he determined to fireside the CEO final week. Now, with CTU-friendly faces on the helm of the Board of Education, the mayor’s workplace and – maybe quickly – CPS, the union’s opponents are sounding the alarm about what they are saying is the union bargaining with itself throughout talks on the academics’ contract.
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