Courtesy of Chicago Teachers Union

The TIF slush funds that the mayor giveth, the mayor also taketh away. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has claimed she’s providing over $100 million from her TIF slush fund to CPS—but will immediately grab those funds back to cover city expenses instead. The mayor is forcing CPS to shoulder pension costs that by law the City is required to pay, and bankroll police in schools that the City previously paid for, despite serious issues related to their training and oversight and a growing call to end their presence in schools. For years, the City of Chicago has picked up the costs of payments to the Municipal Employees’ Annuity and Benefit Fund of Chicago—the public pension fund for CPS’ low-wage teaching assistants, school clerks and other paraprofessionals, or PSRPs. That’s documented in CPS’ online budgets going back to at least 2007. CPS’ 2008 budget explicitly describes why: because the pension code compels the City of Chicago, by law, to make these payments—not CPS. Not this year, according to a line buried deep in the mayor’s budget summary. Instead, Mayor Lori Lightfoot is ignoring the pension code, past practices and the law. That move will cost CPS $60 million this year, more than enough to settle the funding amount that separates CPS and the CTU from landing a tentative agreement at the bargaining table. Lightfoot also saddled CPS with an additional expense, this year—$33 million to cover the cost of posting Chicago police officers to schools, even though the program has drawn fire from the City’s Inspector General for failures in oversight and training.