Chicago school board president race: Victor Henderson makes his case to voters

You're the only candidate in this race who doesn't have experience as a CPS teacher, necessarily. Why should voters choose you over somebody with that CPS experience? Well, for a couple of reasons. One, I've been in public school my entire life, you know, from K through 12. My father went to DuSable. My mother-in-law went to DuSable. My father-in-law went to Dunbar. All of my kids went to, you know, CPS. So I don't think you have to be a chef to know a good meal, you know, when you see one. So, I mean, I think... The other thing is that the board has a lot of, you know, different people. You know, I think there should be parents. There should be community activists. But, you know, it's a $10 billion budget. You also need people who know finance. You need people who know law because there are contracts that need to be negotiated. You need people who have leadership experience. And so, you know, those are the things that I bring to the table, you know, in addition to the fact that I know good education when I see it. I have gotten a great education, and I know what it looks like. Both of your opponents have discussed this $150 million that's been budgeted for the district to get from Springfield. However, that money is not in the bank just yet. It's very speculative. What is your plan if Springfield doesn't come through on that $150 million? Well, the first thing is that I want to jump into the books. Um, I'm the only one in the race who has that skill set. You know, I'm a business owner. I've been a business owner for 15 years. I have to make payroll every month. I have to make sure that the revenue and expenses are properly aligned. You know, I also trained as a certified public accountant. Uh, you can't just, you know, walking off the street and be an orthopedic surgeon. You can't walk in off the street and be a journalist. You can't walk on, walk in off the street and be a teacher or a mechanic. You can't walk in off the street. If you haven't been I've been trained in finance. I'm the only one of the three who has that that training. They don't have that training. And so with a $10 billion budget, you have to not just look at the numbers. You have to look underneath the numbers to see really what's going on. Like a mechanic has to look under the hood. If you don't look underneath the numbers, then you don't know what's going on. So when you look under the hood right now, what do you immediately see as the area where you say? We can cut this and we can find some savings. The first place where I would go would be the approximately $2 billion worth of discretionary income or discretionary expenditures, I should say. You know, 70% of the budget is approximately, you know, goes to, you know, teachers and benefits. 10% of it goes to debt financing. The real opportunity, at least immediately, is the $2 billion, you know, of... What I'm going to characterize as discretionary spending, and I've spoken with, you know, people who believe that we could be able to find $100 million to $200 million per year savings. Now, that doesn't mean that that gets us all the way out of the hole, but that's the first place I would look. And you've got to look below the numbers. Does that mean, like, cutting contracts? Absolutely. I'd much rather cut contracts than teachers, and I know how to cut contracts.