K-12 Funding Package Gives Partial Relief to CPS | 7.1.16

After a year of deadlock, our state passed a stopgap budget that will partially fund services for the next 6 months. They also passed a K-12 package for the year that will offer some relief to CPS. We can all breathe a sigh of relief that school funding won’t be held up from the state, and there will be some increase to CPS and other low-income districts this year, but the amount is not sufficient to meet the full deficit at CPS and we won’t know the true outcome until budgets come out likely mid-July.

Yesterday at a news conference, the mayor said cuts won’t hit the classroom per Fran Spielman of the Sun-Times on Twitter, while Chief Ed Office Janice Jackson said at another press conference that cuts to instruction won’t be “as bad" per Lauren Fitzpatrick of the Sun-Times.

Here’s some info on the state plan:
SB318 passed -. Re-establishes annual property tax levy to the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund. The levy is capped at 0.383 and could mean up to $250 million for CPS. This is not a mandated property tax increase, but it seems likely CPS will want to use it (per Bobby Otter of CTBA).
SB2822 passed. State contribution to CPS $215.2m for teacher pensions that would be paid June 1, 2017. BUT, this bill will lie dormant until pension reform is reached.
$250M equity grant for low-income districts - $102M to CPS.

Rauner signs stopgap budget, school funding bill — but relief from stalemate proves temporary

RYH, with your help, will continue to push for a larger TIF surplus, a charter moratorium, improved spending at the CPS Board level, and at the state level a better funding formula for education and revenue so that we can move IL from bottom of the ladder on state funding adequacy and equity.