CPS is broke. To preserve funding for the classroom and Chicago's children, and to keep CPS from going belly up, CPS officials must broker significant concessions from the union.
From 2009 to 2014, the state added $8.9 billion in new tax dollars to the education budget, over and above the base amount of $6.8 billion it spent in 2009. Of those new dollars spent, 89 percent went to retirement costs and just 11 percent made it to classrooms.
Since 2009, 89 cents of every new dollar for education goes to teacher pensions
CTU President Karen Lewis has acknowledged that CPS is in dire straits – and that her union may have to make concessions in contract negotiations, including ending the practice of the school district – meaning taxpayers – picking up the majority of teacher contributions toward pensions, which has cost $1.3 billion since 2006.
On Jan. 21 Gov. Bruce Rauner reignited reform talks surrounding Illinois’ worst-in-the-nation pension crisis.
Here's what you need to know about Illinois' $111 billion state pension crisis.
Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services issued a two-notch downgrade to the Chicago Board of Education on Jan. 15, citing failure to address the district’s structural financial problems.
General Electric will move its corporate headquarters and 800 jobs to Boston, Mass., from Fairfield, Conn., noting its concerns about Chicago’s government-worker pension debt in its rejection of the Windy City.
The fiscal crises caused by the state’s government-worker pension liabilities.
Taxpayers pay once for state politicians’ salaries and another 1.5 times for their bankrupt pension system. In 2017, taxpayers will contribute the equivalent of nearly $123,000 for each lawmaker just to keep the General Assembly Retirement System afloat.
Diverting taxpayer dollars from pensions to salaries, underfunding pensions, and providing unsustainably high pension benefits have caused Elgin, Illinois’ combined police and firefighter pension shortfalls to double in just nine years to $180 million.
The outsized benefits received by retired government workers under the State Universities Retirement System and the unfair burden this places on taxpayers demonstrate the urgent need to reform Illinois’ government-worker pensions.
Kentucky’s governor-elect wants 401(k)s for new government employees.
Regardless of the outcome of the case, the burden Chicagoans face from the government-worker pension crisis won’t be going away any time soon.