The bottom line is this new contract piles hundreds of millions of additional costs onto an already junk-rated, insolvent school system. The only way CPS is likely to pay for this is through more borrowing, more deficits, and more taxes on Chicagoans.

Grassroots activists seeking tax reform are set to stage a protest at the James R. Thompson center in downtown Chicago Oct. 12.

Comment: Actually, most of it is quite clear. They’ve relied on a nonrecurring source — TIF raiding — and still haven’t covered the cost. And, as is becoming routine, they stiffed new teachers on the pension cost while protecting the senior ones.

“It’s an assessment that some analysts and buyside representatives share – to some extent – but it ignores the concerns many retain over the fragility of some of the city’s gains and worries that Chicago has a long way to go to clear the woods.” Comment: I’d respectfully reword that to say, “It’s an assessment the whores in the muni industry peddle, but nobody really believes his crap.”

As often is the case with public sector workers, the threat of a disruptive strike was enough to dissolve whatever gumption Emanuel and district officials had stockpiled. By keeping the pension pickup in place for current teachers, taxpayers lose out on desperately needed short-term savings of roughly $127 million annually.

“It still isn’t clear how the financially strapped city will pay for the four-year deal.”

“Today, I am presenting you a budget unlike any we have seen in recent memory.” It is a budget free of an immediate pension crisis, free of the black cloud of insolvency threatening the retirements of city employees and the financial future of Chicago.” The city’s budget overview is linked here and the text of Rahm’s speech is linked here. Comment: We’ll review, and write it up as soon as I can regain composure.

Since 1996, the northwest suburban district has changed from 25 to 60 percent minority, with nearly half of all students low-income. The percentage of students learning English has doubled, to 22 percent.

“Choosing the bankruptcy as the turnaround point underestimates groundwork laid earlier, in some cases many years before.”

Pension payouts are guaranteed. Clout-heavy insiders get money from pensions. “Combine those two realities of life in Chicago…and you have the story of 3348 S. Pulaski Rd.”

“The 7% pension pickup remains intact,” the union tweeted out — but Lewis clarified that only existing teachers would keep that much-discussed benefit that CPS decades ago had agreed to pay for them. New hires will assume that cost themselves, she said. Full text of tentative agreement linked here.