Watchdog group shreds Chicago public schools' 'gimmick-based' budget

Crain's Chicago Business reports:

An already "unsustainable" financial hole at Chicago Public Schools continues to only get worse, setting the stage for "dramatic and painful" cuts next year, according to a review of its proposed 2015 budget by the Civic Federation.

The watchdog group hasn't had much nice to say about CPS in recent years — I called its 2014 review "absolutely scathing" — but the review being released today is even more negative, depicting a system that seemingly has lost the will to do anything but spend increasing amounts of money it doesn't have.

CPS is "fiscally overcommitting itself" and technically balancing its books only via a $600 million "accounting gimmick," the federation says in an 85-page report on a system in charge of educating roughly 350,000 youngsters. "(The budget) represents a short-term, short-sighted plan in the midst of a grave and ongoing fiscal crisis."

With normal revenue and enrollment down, CPS should at a minimum be holding spending even in its $6.8 billion budget for fiscal 2015, which started July 1, the federation says. But as Mayor Rahm Emanuel prepares to run for re-election, the amount going out the door is up as much as $441 million, or 8.4 percent from the fiscal year that ended June 30.

Even worse, the financial pros at the Civic Federation say CPS' budget accounting and reporting is so opaque that the citizens' group can't get a clear grasp of what's actually occurring inside CPS' budget office.

Public education is fraud financed by theft. After all, the entire Chicago Public School System board is appointed by Rahm Emanuel - a true expert in accounting fraud Freddie Mac style.