Sunday, August 23, 2015

Illinois lawmakers gave Chicago's mayor the freedom to ruin school finances

The Chicago Tribune reports:
Two decades ago, Chicago Public Schools was recovering from a budget meltdown so severe that banks had at one point refused to lend the district money. Schools had deteriorated badly, and a U.S. education secretary some years earlier had tagged the district "the worst in America."

In a move hailed as a new beginning for CPS, the state gave Chicago's mayor control of the district, releasing it from emergency state management. The 1995 overhaul ushered in badly needed improvements. But records and interviews show that lax budget rules written into the legislation paved the way for the current financial crisis.


Instead of imposing lasting fiscal discipline, Illinois lawmakers gave the district a smorgasbord of new ways to hide annual shortfalls. Rather than address underlying structural budget problems, they relaxed the rules governing school spending. CPS got back unfettered access to borrowing and gained the power to divert tax dollars earmarked for pensions to other uses.

The district's new freedom made possible the buy now, pay later strategies employed first under Mayor Richard Daley and then under Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Today, Chicago Public Schools is again in financial crisis, with a junk bond rating and a dangerously underfunded teacher retirement system.
Government run education just doesn't work financially. Here's one of the best, modern day , examples of how there's no accountability in government.