July 13--Chicago Public Schools on Monday unveiled dire financial projections for the coming school year, warning that cuts will be even worse than those announced earlier this month if pension relief is not granted in Springfield.
The individual school budgets distributed to principals rely on $500 million in pension help from Springfield, something neither the governor nor state lawmakers have so far been willing to provide. If that help does not arrive, there could be more budget cuts halfway through the school year, officials said.
Per-pupil spending levels are not changing from last year, but CPS no longer will cushion the funding losses to schools whose enrollment has dropped. At least 65 schools will have $200,000 cut from their budgets, Chief Financial Officer Ginger Ostro said.
"We're trying to keep cuts from the classroom door, (but) we're not keeping them from the school door," CPS interim CEO Jesse Ruiz said.
"No one would argue that these are the budgets that we would like to be presenting," Ruiz said in a conference call with reporters. "But they reflect the reality of where we are today: a budget deficit of more than $1 billion, the demands of a broken pension system, and a state education funding that is near last in the country."
If the district does not get the $500 million in pension help the budgets rely on, it will be "forced to turn to alternatives that will include a combination of unsustainable borrowing and additional cuts" in the second half of the school year, according to Ruiz.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel continued to blame the school funding crisis on Springfield, calling the cuts CPS principals would face in their budgets "unconscionable" and saying state lawmakers and Gov. Bruce Rauner could solve the situation by changing the way the district has to fund its teacher pension system.
"In major part, in my view, (the cuts are) because Springfield is unreasonable," Emanuel said Monday while talking to reporters after an unrelated event on the West Side. "You are asking the system to continue an inequity."
Emanuel assured parents that their children will start school on time. But he also said the financial squeeze could soon affect spending on education.
"We'll be presenting a budget in that effort, but today is about helping the principals so schools -- let me be clear, school is going to start on time in the city of Chicago, it's, again, we will not be increasing class size," he said. "But we're getting to a point where you cannot balance the needs to continue to invest in the educational advancements and gains we're making on high school graduation, test scores, attendance and continue to also meet all the financial obligations."
"We're going to continue to work through the issue," he said. "It's not a one-time effort."
The district, already planning about $200 million in cuts, learned Friday that it would not be able to postpone until 2017 $500 million worth of pension payments due June 30. To find money to make the pension contribution, the district will have to cut from other areas.
The district said earlier this month that it will eliminate coaching subsidies for elementary school sports teams, reduce professional development and consolidate bus stops for students transported to magnet schools.
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