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Twenty-six members of the City Council fired off a letter to school board members Wednesday urging them to reject taking a loan that would reimburse the city for the $175 million pension payment. That’s despite the city’s budget — approved by the council in December 2024 — counting on CPS making the payment.
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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Until CPS becomes fiscally responsible and stands up to CTU, they’ll always be operating in a deficit. Close underutilized schools, and consolidate schools, and lay off the staff. Focus on methods to improve education in the language arts, math, science and US history. Fire teachers who have classes of failing students. These students don’t have a future in failing public schools. CPS owes them an education and a chance at a decent life. CPS pushing students into a life of crime and failure.
So much wrong with Johnson’s meeting the other night, heavily stocked with clapping, barking approvingly upon command seals. I noticed the Trump! Bad! poster in the background. Umm.. the CPS has mismanaged an ever increasing flow of taxpayers money since long before Trump took office. Both Rahm and Lori had pitched battles with the Gates level activist Karen Lewis (?) before she stepped down. The CTU demands more and more while less than half- filled schools are fully staffed, an already bloated staff hired with covid money continues to draw paychecks, and there has been no effort to do anything… Read more »