The Chicago Public Schools is facing the largest deficit in the district’s history. That’s what schools chief Ron Huberman told the City Council’s Education Committee.

Huberman said he plans to release a three-year budget projection soon. It will show a worsening situation each year.

HUBERMAN: There is the perfect storm of reduced revenues, and ballooning and explosive pension payments. And the only word I can use for it is explosive, because they go up by hundreds of millions of dollars in one year.

The district will not be able to plug budget holes with an estimated $390 million from the stimulus package, since much of that money is earmarked. Huberman, who’s been on the job about four weeks, said he’ll cut central office jobs before touching schools.

Huberman has touted pension savings he won as head of the Chicago Transit Authority. He did that by renegotiating the retirement age.

Unfiltered: Ron Huberman’s formal remarks to aldermen
Unfiltered:Ron Huberman on the CPS budget