Chicago Teachers Union members sue union bosses over missing financial reports

The Chicago Teachers Union is required to provide an annual audit to members under its own internal rules. It hasn’t done so for over four years. Members are suing to see what the union bosses are doing with the money.

The Chicago Teachers Union is facing a lawsuit by four of its own members for breach of contract because it failed for over four years to provide an annual audit to members, as is required under the union’s rules.

Attorneys sent a letter to the union on members’ behalf Oct. 1, demanding the union release audits for the missing fiscal years. When the union failed to comply, the members filed suit – represented by the nonprofit Liberty Justice Center.

The last time CTU released the required document was Sept. 9, 2020, covering the 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 fiscal years. While keeping its members in the dark, CTU has raised their dues by 13%, to over $1,400 for its 2024 fiscal year.

CTU already faces heavy disapproval from Chicagoans, with 46% of voters having an unfavorable opinion of the union. Just 36% approve of the union, which operates as the Chicago political machine, spending more than $24.3 million on politics since 2010 and getting its way in City Hall and Springfield.

Those who have dared to question CTU’s finances have been targeted with insults by its president, Stacy Davis Gates. Other members have just left the union altogether.

It’s not a good look for the union: refusing to abide by its own rules, keeping its own members in the dark on union finances and then driving up their dues to pay for whatever the union’s leaders are doing with the money.

There’s reason to worry about CTU bosses’ and their money management acumen. CTU made 700-plus contract demands with a dismissive attitude about the cost to taxpayers. Chicago Public Schools has projected just 52 of those demands would create a $2.9 billion deficit for the district next fiscal year and a $4 billion hole by 2029.

It all comes down to this: CTU’s leaders have no desire to be accountable to members and a complete disregard for other people’s money.

CTU’s bylaws require publication of an annual audit of finances, but there’s been no sign of an audit since September 2020

CTU’s internal rules are clear: an annual audit must be performed and published each year.

Specifically, the CTU financial secretary is required by union bylaws to “furnish an audited report of the Union which shall be printed in the Union’s publication.” Similarly, the CTU Board of Trustees is to “procure each year, a reliable and adequate audit of the finances of the Union for the preceding fiscal year ending June 30, and to deliver a copy of said audit to other major officers and to announce to the membership of the Union that said report may be inspected in the Union office by any member.”

The last audit was released September 9, 2020, and covered the 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 fiscal years.  Audits for 2019-2020, 2020-2021, 2021-2022, 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 fiscal years have not been released.

When questioned about the missing audits by a CTU member, Davis Gates personally attacked the member, labeling the call for the release of the required audits a racist “dog whistle.”

Since then, the person serving as “Special Assistance [sic] to the President,” Kurt Hilgendorf,  responded that the audits for 2019-2020, 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 have been procured, but are “just not quite done yet.” He made no mention of the fourth missing audit – for the 2022-2023 fiscal year – which ended June 30, 2023.

That was in September 2023. More than a year later, the audits still have not been produced, and the 2023-2024 fiscal year has now passed.

Members have ample reason to be concerned with CTU’s finances

CTU and Davis Gates were rocked by scandals in 2023. Davis Gates’ performance in her first full year as union president did not inspire confidence, and it caused members to question where and how their dues money is spent.

CTU’s financial house is teetering. Under the leadership of Davis Gates, the union ran its first reported deficit, spending nearly $500,000 more than it took in, in its 2023 fiscal year. It spent just 17 cents of each dollar representing members, a decrease from each of the previous years reported, and it spent three times more on politics than it did in any previous year reported. When the union bankrolled Brandon Johnson’s mayoral campaign without consulting its members, members started speaking out. An unfair labor practice complaint was filed by members against their own union.

The union then raised its dues by $160 for 2024, most likely to compensate for its financial missteps.

Davis Gates’ tenure as CTU president has been tainted by financial mismanagement and sketchy personal dealings.

No wonder CTU is calling on Chicago Public Schools to grant more than $10 billion in additional demands in the new contract, just a few of which would create a $4 billion hole by 2029. Its leaders have a complete lack of respect for other people’s money, whether that be their own members’ or Chicago taxpayers’.