No current or former members of the Chicago Board of Education attended Wednesday's marathon session of the City Council’s Education Committee, even after some City Council members threatened to hit them with subpoenas to require them to appear.

“A generation-long persistence in structurally imbalanced budgets, coupled with high pension and debt burdens, mean the city will face enormous budget shortfalls in the coming years,” wrote Joseph Ferguson, the head of the nonpartisan budget watchdog group and the city’s former inspector general.

CPS CEO Pedro Martinez said during an appearance on WTTW News’ “Chicago Tonight” he has repeatedly urged the mayor to use funds from the city’s TIF districts instead of borrowing money or making cuts to classrooms.

“I’m not going to cut, and take away, layoff, fire, privatize so that other people can benefit, and the people of Chicago can lose,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said. “Not under my watch.”

“This is still very much a frustration I have,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said. “I’ve been in conversations with the superintendent, with our budget director to come up with better systems.”

The city is on pace to spend at least $258 million on police overtime by the end of the year, even as officials imposed limits on overtime for all city departments, except for police and the Chicago Fire Department, amid a massive budget crunch.

During the past week, CPS CEO Pedro Martinez has written three times to parents, staff and students, and in each letter, he has promised that he will not close any schools while at the helm of CPS, even as he acknowledged compiling a list of schools that could be closed as part of an effort to compile a five-year strategic plan.

A spokesperson for Mayor Brandon Johnson declined to comment on whether he had asked CPS CEO Pedro Martinez to resign, citing the mayor’s policy of not commenting on personnel matters. A spokesperson for Martinez declined to comment.

The move was announced Monday by Annette Guzman, the city’s budget director, and comes as city leaders stare down a $222.9 million deficit this year and a projected $982 million shortfall in the 2025 fiscal year.

“There are sacrifices that will be made,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said.

In all, Chicago owes $37.2 billion to its four employee pension funds representing police officers, firefighters, municipal employees and laborers, according to the 2023 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report.

As the mayor ramps up work on his second budget proposal, a newly formed Chicago City Council subcommittee is set to meet at noon Wednesday to start examining the dozens of proposals to increase the amount of money officials have on hand to spend starting in 2025.

In all, Chicago spent $202 million on a host of programs including affordable housing, mental health, violence prevention, youth job programs and help for unhoused Chicagoans through March 31, records show.

“This has been a situation that has gotten increasingly out of control,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said about the massive bills for police overtime. “The superintendent and I, we both agree on that.”

The Chicago Police Department spent $293 million on overtime last year, 40% more than in 2022 and nearly three times the $100 million earmarked for police overtime set by the Chicago City Council as part of the city’s 2023 budget, according to data obtained by WTTW News.

“I’m going to spend all that money, I can assure you of that,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said.