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The Chicago college board postponed a high-stakes vote on whether or not to amend its price range and make a pension fee that has pitted the district towards the mayor’s workplace.
Within the minutes earlier than the beginning of the board’s month-to-month assembly Thursday, Chicago Board of Schooling President Sean Harden pulled the modification from the agenda, together with a separate decision that will have dedicated the district to pay town $175 million towards a municipal pension fund each this yr and subsequent.
Various college board members had signaled they’d not assist the modification, and pushing aside the vote allowed Harden to keep away from an embarrassing failure to whip up the mandatory votes. Funds-related gadgets require two-thirds vote — or 14 members — to cross.
The delay got here on a day when each the district and the Chicago Lecturers Union reported they had been on the cusp of reaching a deal in contentious contract talks which have stretched on for nearly a yr. The price range modification would have additionally lined the price of that contract and one for the principals union that’s additionally underneath negotiation.
Harden stated he was shelving the modification vote as a result of CPS and the union had been “extraordinarily, extraordinarily” near touchdown a tentative settlement. He urged the board would revisit the modification shortly, after the contract and its value had been locked in.
“Appreciable progress has been made,” he stated. “I’m more than happy about that.”
Throughout a press convention in entrance of CPS headquarters earlier than the board assembly, CTU leaders stated a bargaining session Thursday morning throughout which district leaders introduced counter affords has introduced the 2 sides even nearer to one another although some daylight stays on the important thing contested points. Union officers highlighted pay for veteran academics and elementary trainer preparation time. In addition they urged the varsity board to again the modification and canopy the $175 million pension reimbursement to town.
District officers had introduced the board with a price range modification that added in an additional $139 million in property tax {dollars} that CPS obtained from town this previous winter. The modification additionally says the district might use the cash to pay for the contracts and reimburse town for the $175 million fee to the pension fund, which covers some non-teaching workers. However it didn’t spell out how the district would swing each expenditures.
In latest weeks, town has stepped up stress on the district to pay up. Throughout a public listening to on the modification final week, metropolis officers and a few aldermen threatened that town might withhold future tax income from CPS if the district doesn’t reimburse the fee.
However district leaders and a few elected board members have continued to insist that the district simply merely doesn’t have a great way of scrounging up the cash for the fee, which by legislation stays the duty of town. A report by the consulting agency Baker Tilly launched this week appeared to validate that stance: It famous that restructuring the district’s debt — an choice the mayor’s workplace has championed not too long ago — is unsure and certain gained’t give the closely indebted CPS a lot bang for its buck.
Anticipating the likelihood that the modification won’t get sufficient votes, some board members additionally launched a separate decision to commit the district to paying the $175 million to town each this yr and subsequent. That decision would have wanted a easy majority of the board to assist it. Not like different gadgets coming earlier than the board, it contained clean spots the place Martinez’s signature and that of Chief Monetary Officer Miroslava Mejia Krug can be.
However it appeared that this board couldn’t cross this decision with no price range modification appropriating the cash to cowl that new expense.
The continued logjam on the bargaining desk with the academics union additionally loomed over the Thursday night time assembly. Dozens of academics packed the board assembly to name for a fast decision to the contract talks.
The 2 sides are caught on how a lot preparation time elementary college academics ought to have. The union initially requested for 90 minutes — returning half-hour that had been lower a decade in the past to be able to lengthen the varsity day. The union diminished their ask to 80 minutes and the district has moved to 70 minutes, up from the hour these academics at present have. Different excellent points embody how a lot veteran academics are paid and the way ceaselessly highly-rated academics are evaluated by principals.
On the Thursday press convention, Chrystel Williams, the union’s recording secretary and a former CPS paraprofessional, famous that town’s fund pays for pensions for paraprofessionals. She argued that the district’s resistance to chipping in for the fund is a “slap within the face” for assist workers who depend on it.
Help for the pension fee is a reversal for the CTU, whose leaders had sharply criticized former Mayor Lori Lightfoot for passing on prices to the district, saying she was balancing town’s price range on the backs of scholars. With Johnson in cost — and a partly elected college board stepping in earlier this yr — the union has shifted its place.
Signaling that union leaders really feel they’re near a deal, Randi Weingarten, the pinnacle of the American Federation of Lecturers, of which the CTU is a component, made an look on the press convention. She referred to as on the board to settle the academics contract, arguing that President Trump’s push to dismantle the U.S. Division of Schooling added urgency.
“The best way through which we struggle Donald Trump is for Chicago to say, ‘We care about our kids,’” she stated.
Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter masking Chicago Public Colleges. Contact Mila at [email protected].
