Number of half-empty Chicago public schools doubles, yet lawmakers want to extend school closing moratorium – Wirepoints
April 19, 2024
16 Comments
A set of state lawmakers want to extend CPS’ current school closing moratorium to February 1, 2027 – the same year CPS is set to transition to a fully-elected school board. That means schools like Manley High School, with capacity for more than 1,000 students but enrollment of just 78, can’t be closed for anther three years. The school spends $45,000 per student, but just 2.4% of students read at grade level.
Hopefully, all media will get the message, in Illinois, too.
Ted joined Tom Miller of WJPF to talk about Illinois’ highest-in-the-nation property taxes, why lawmakers don’t want to touch the tax’s cost drivers, just how much Illinoisans’ tax burden has grown over the decades, why Gov. Pritzker failed to meet his promise to reform property taxes, and more.
Go Mark!
Waiting for the professor to put up some numbers on Chicago raising taxes…….
Waiting…
I do not quite understand your argument. The Illinois Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that the pensions are contractual obligations that must be paid when due, and given that this ruling was not appealed it is the last word on the matter. So if we don’t properly fund the pensions and keep kicking the can down the road as we have been doing for many decades, we are simply increasing the burden on future generations of taxpayers. Whether we pay now or pay later, either way, the accumulated obligations must be paid, unless you are advocating complete defiance of the… Read more »
Professor Szakmary- Spare me the rule of law stuff. The rule of law includes law about insolvency under which debts get reduced all the time. It also ignores the reality that rules can change, and the other options for pension reform I have written about here that are within the law. You’ve often written that Chicago can solve its pension crisis by raising taxes. I defy you to put up the numbers showing how much, in dollars, it could raise and what that would solve. As for state pensions, you are Exhibit A about who should not get paid in… Read more »
Wow, I’m beginning to see why so many post anonymously to this site…. Regarding my pension, while I am certainly not belittling it, in proper context it is not as generous or out-of-line as it appears at first glance. I was relatively well-paid and contributed 8% of my salary to SURS throughout my Illinois employment, and because the state does not participate in Social Security, my SS benefits will be significantly reduced by the WEP and the GPO. I did this calculation two years ago: what if (in addition to my own 8%) the State of Illinois had contributed the… Read more »
Professor- Let’s start with Chicago. Its total property tax collections are about $900M, so doubling it would bring in another $900M. It has been paying only about $.5 billion into the pensions. Interest alone on the $20B pension liability, using the city’s discount rate, is $1.5B per year. Add in normal costs for continuing service plus some schedule to pay off the liability and you get to well over $2B. Even using the phony accounting the city uses in its financials shows annual pension cost at $1.8B. Conclusion: The unequivocal claims you have made in comments elsewhere that doubling the… Read more »
I think Andrew’s pension is actually one of the few examples where the state comes out ahead. Since Andrew took another job after being employed by the state, he essentially “delayed” his locked-in pension payment for a number of years while his pension contributions (both er/ee) sat and compounded interest year after year (assuming 7.5% ROR). That’s good for the state, not so much for Andrew. If all pensioners spent the 1st half of their career in the public sector, then the other half away from state employment, the taxpayers should, in theory, come out ahead in pensions. And the… Read more »