-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
The debate over the municipal pension payment and loan consumed the budget process. But CPS faced a deficit outside of these factors in large part because CPS had used $2.8 billion federal COVID relief funding to hire thousands of teachers and other staff — and that money ran out.
Summary and audio linked here.
Chicago’s political leadership is floating a pension buyout program as evidence it is seriously addressing the city’s thirty-six-billion-dollar unfunded pension liability, but Mark Glennon, founder of the Illinois policy research organization Wirepoints, said that the proposal moves debt from one column to another rather than reducing it, and that the broader fiscal picture facing the city continues to deteriorate across every measurable dimension. Audio here.
Expect no retraction or apology. This what they do.
The state’s existing buyout program for its own pensions is the precedent for Chicago, which should be a warning: Look out for similar exaggerated claims and shoddy analysis.
Full interview and summary linked here.
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Lets take a giant meat cleaver and chop away excess fat. The only way this fiasco gets fixed
Crossing guards aren’t going to cut the budget much, it’s time to consolidate and fire some of the 9,000 teachers hired with covid money they can no longer afford.
YOU really want to be like private businesses, lay off bad teachers keep the good. fire the union.
You can’t “fire” a union but you can fire bad teachers. I would imagine many of them were in the recent layoff.
Yes you can. You don’t renew the contract. You hire independent teachers.
Clearly you have no idea about the law. You can’t fire all union teachers and only rehire non-union ones. Thanks for playing but try again.
“You are free to try and negotiate a better contract with teachers. If the price is too high, you are free to try and find that cheaper labor at the scale that you need.”
Oops. Guess we are not so free to do that after all. The story changes from one day to the next.
Great! Now start working on finding a billion is savings for next year. They could always raise taxes but that might be tough with an election shortly after. Should be fun to watch. I wonder how much they will anticipate in TIF money for the 2027 budget?
“Now start working on finding a billion is savings for next year.”
I don’t think that is going to happen based on last night’s meeting. Savings was not a word used very often; the most common words during comments were Bilionaires, Fairshare, State, $1.6B….
It’s like a drug. They just need a little bit more.
Will there be even ONE permanent CTU layoff?
Probably not. The closest you would probably get is a hiring freeze. Schools typically retain only around 60% of their staff after 5 years. There wouldn’t need to be a layoff and you could still reduce the size and structure over a few years.
But lowly b&b seiu no problems laying off!!
If Chicagoans want education, they should follow what Stacey Gates does. She is the leader in the education system.
Do you mean sending you kids to private education like she does?