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As part of the deal, the district has agreed to create a vaccination plan for students and their family members in Chicago neighborhoods hardest hit by COVID-19, as well as a three-tier reopening schedule that would have students at the biggest high schools returning to buildings as little as one day a week.
Sunday’s ratification of an agreement between the union and Chicago Public Schools means high schools will open their doors to students tomorrow for the first time in more than a year. A third of high schoolers, about 26,000 students, have indicated they will go back.
“CPS…is the second biggest employer in Chicago, with an $8.7 billion operating budget. The school board must administer that budget and make decisions on levying additional property taxes. Not for nothing should the board include business and finance experts of the highest caliber.”
A 2014 federal mandate forced states to cover autism treatment through Medicaid; Illinois was one of a handful of states that didn’t provide Medicaid coverage for behavioral therapy until 2019. However, an error in implementation created restrictions on who could provide behavioral therapy, an obstacle that has functionally prevented Illinois’ Medicaid plan from covering behavioral therapy despite it technically being included in Medicaid spending on paper.
“We just believe that it is a decent benefit for our members to be able to earn pensionable credit whenever they are working,” says AFFI President Chuck Sullivan.
Jim Dey: “This is not a new dispute. The rise of new media outlets and the decline of traditional ones have opened the door to public officials adopting a sometimes-heavy hand in determining who gets access and who does not.”
She responded to rumors Sunday morning in a series of Tweets, which began: “(O)ur city doesn’t have any time for homophobic, racist and misogynistic rumors, today or any day.“
Dozens of municipalities in Illinois already have a similar law on the books, including the city of Chicago and Cook County.
“I am uneasy about the actions taken against an attorney for a statement that could have been clarified in both court and in public. I am also concerned with the lack of specifically on the error and the failure to confirm the basic facts on the gun forensics.”
Lightfoot earlier supported an all-elected board. But she “has since come to her senses — as I see it — and changed camps, evidently realizing that subjecting the administration of public schools to the grubby shake-and-howdy of big-city politics is not the best way to go. Though it allows a mayor to wash her hands of bad student outcomes and toxic labor negotiations, it opens the door to ideological proxy battles waged by high-dollar donors from all over the country.”
David Greising, of the Better Government Association: “The bills died, each time, under the offices of Madigan, sources told me. Madigan’s legal staff told backers of the bills there was concern a state extortion law would criminalize normal legislative horse trading — the scratch-your-back wrangling at the heart of the Springfield lawmaking process.”
Unfortunately for those Illinoisans still out of work, Gov. J.B. Pritzker is pursuing nine new taxes worth nearly $1 billion, including ones that would hurt job creation efforts. Pritzker is also rumored to be pursuing the cancellation of a pandemic recovery tax credit for small businesses that would have taken from $500 million to $1 billion more from them as they struggle to recover.
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