Chicago Public Schools has agreed to pay the state $10.9 million annually for the next eight years to return $87.5 million that had accidentally been funded to the district — and the district expects to lose another $45 million in funding this year because of the error.
The payment plan comes after months of discussions between CPS officials and the Illinois State Board of Education, which asked the district to repay the money in April when it discovered the mistake.
A contractor working with the state during former Gov. Bruce Rauner’s administration made a coding error that overstated the enrollment of students at state-authorized charter schools in districts with more than one such school, officials said in the spring. CPS is the only district with more than one state-authorized charter school, so it was the only system to get money it shouldn’t have.
Mistakes were made...
