Not a Good Day to Be a Teacher

By Chuck Sudo in News on Jun 15, 2011 7:40PM

Mayor Emanuel's newly appointed Chicago School Board voted to rescind a 4 percent pay raise that was already written into the Board's contract with the union for 2012.

The Board said that they simply did not have the money - an estimated $100 million - to guarantee the raises for teachers and other union members. the Board said that 75 percent of the teachers in the union will still receive a series of tenure and education-based pay raises that will still cost the system $35 million. Chief Human Capital Officer Alicia Winckler said the pay of CPS teachers ranks “either No. 1 or No. 2’’ in the nation for starting base salary, maximum base salary and average base salary.

CTU President Karen Lewis counters that total compensation, including all pension and benefits, for full-time elementary teachers at CPS ranks 38th highest among districts in Illinois, while average compensation for high school teachers ranks 71st in the state. So how can one set of numbers be among the best in the country while another set rank Chicago teachers' salaries so low.

We're curious. So is Chicago News Cooperative, which reviewed the system's funding sources and came to the conclusion that the stated budget deficit of $720 million may not be that. In fact, CNC is unclear as to what CPS' actual deficit may be.

CPS has come to rely on hundreds of millions of dollars in federal stimulus funds, which are drying up. In the administration’s most recent budget presentation, in March, officials said CPS will have exhausted $260 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and $104 million from the federal Education Jobs Fund.

Yet state records show the district has spent just $29 million of its Education Jobs Fund money and has $75 million remaining. CPS last drew from the fund in late April, according to Illinois State Board of Education records. The district also still had $100 million of ARRA money available as of April 30, state records show.

CPS spokeswoman Becky Carroll said the remaining ARRA money has been allocated to CPS programs for fiscal year 2011 and would be spent in the next two weeks. She did not specify what programs will receive the funds.

Carroll said of the Education Jobs Fund money that it is “entirely possible that not all of it will be spent” by the end of the fiscal year and that, “some of that money could still end up on the ledger next year.”

At the March board meeting, district officials said they reached the $724 million estimated by deficit by calculating a $554 million loss that could be compounded by $170 million in additional costs.

The $554 million loss includes the end of $260 million in ARRA funds; $104 million from the Education Jobs Fund and a $190 million draw-down of general fund balance reserves used to plug the fiscal year 2011 deficit.

The $170 million in additional costs include $100 million if the teachers’ pay raise is approved; $35 million for step salary hikes to various staff and $35 million for increased healthcare and pension obligations.

We've wondered for a while if Mayor Emanuel would pick his first major fight in office with the Chicago Teachers Union. All signs in recent days point that way. Earlier this week, Gov. Quinn's signing of the education reform bill Monday a reform bill Emanuel had been championing. Among the more notable provisions in the bill is one that makes it harder for a teachers union to call a strike. A teachers union will now need 75 percent of its total membership to vote in favor of a strike before they can call one. This would make it harder for a teachers union to actually call a strike. Lewis and the CTU have been working to have language inserted into the bill so that 75 percent of working teachers in the union must agree on a strike before it can be called. Yesterday, the CTU was among a coalition of labor groups who marched in protests of the bank bailouts and corporate tax cut extensions that they say have robbed public schools of funding. 24 protestors were arrested.