The Chicago Teachers Union spent years insisting it was financially transparent. The sudden release in January of previously hidden audits tells a different story — one that demands accountability.
It's taken five years, a lawsuit filed by its own members, and congressional involvement for CTU to provide the audits it’s legally bound to release to members annually. It could take even longer to understand how discrepancies in the data affect members. They deserved better.
These documents were not shared as part of routine disclosure. They were produced under mounting legal and congressional pressure, after years of stonewalling, while CTU expanded its political influence across Chicago and Illinois. The last time the union published an audit was in 2020, for its 2019 fiscal activity.
During the five-year period when audits were withheld, CTU and its affiliates became the city’s largest political spender and a central force behind Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s rise – spending nearly $6.5 million in the latest municipal election. Teachers who asked basic questions about union finances were bullied, even as leadership assured members the information existed and was available to them.
It was not.
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