Chicago Public Schools CEO Forrest Claypool is scrambling because the district's budget is seriously out of whack and a huge teachers pension payment looms in June.
On Monday, Claypool announced a $46 million "spending freeze" that will force principals to scramble themselves to rejigger their budgets in the middle of the school year. Those cuts likely will be felt by teachers and students, not just bureaucrats in the central office. And the budget still isn't balanced.
What — or whom — does Claypool blame for this budget debacle?
How about the district's many years of reckless fiscal mismanagement and chronic spending beyond its revenues?
No, that's not what angers him.
Does Claypool blame CPS' willingness to suspend disbelief — that is, his own willingness to suspend disbelief — and depend on the kindness of Springfield to fork over $215 million in pension payments this year, against all evidence that state lawmakers locked in a budget stalemate would fulfill his daydream?
Nah, just a minor miscalculation.
Maybe Claypool regrets the district's misguided hope that teachers would cave during last year's contract talks and gradually pick up more of the employee share of their pension contributions? (None of that happened.)
Nope, only a flesh wound.
How about the reckless borrowing that the district indulges, year after year, pushing CPS so deep into debt that bankruptcy might be the only way out? Or does Claypool blame his fellow Democrats who've controlled the legislature since the early 2000s yet failed to fix Illinois' school funding inequities? (A just-released, bipartisan, blue-ribbon report details, for the umpteenth time, the shortcomings of the funding system.)
You know the answers. Claypool isn't about to make Democrats in City Hall or Springfield wear this jacket.
No, Claypool blames Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner and his "Trumpian" tactics for the districts abysmal financial condition. "Just like Trump, he's attacking children of immigrants, he's attacking racial minorities, attacking the poor here in Chicago," Claypool told reporters, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. "In this case, it's children, which is particularly shameful."
That drew a furious reaction from Rauner administration officials. On Tuesday, Illinois Secretary of Education Beth Purvis lashed Claypool in an open letter to district parents, calling Claypool's announcement "curiously timed and unfortunate." Purvis asserted that the district was "arbitrarily" creating a crisis to "help justify a campaign to raise taxes in Springfield."
Brief history: In December, Rauner vetoed that $215 million cash infusion for CPS because it wasn't tied to the broader statewide pension reforms he had demanded in exchange. That spurred another winnerless political squabble over who had broken promises to whom. Ever since, City Hall's tactic has been blame, blame, blame.
Meanwhile, reality persists: There's no dreamy $215 million infusion for CPS. And no respite from the on-again, off-again tango with insolvency.
We give Claypool credit for cutting the district's overhead expenses. Yet CPS borrowing is nearly maxed out. Its bonds are deep in junk terrain. Teachers are protesting district-imposed furlough days to save money. They're demanding Claypool's resignation.
At least one Chicago Board of Education member has raised the unthinkable possibility of trimming the school year to make ends meet. Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who fought hard to extend the school day, should nix that idea immediately.
As it twists in the wind, CPS continues to lose enrollment, continues to operate a real estate empire that is too big and too expensive, continues to hope, desperately, for a Springfield rescue — and warns yet again of grim consequences if lawmakers don't direct more state tax dollars to Chicago.
"We're taking things one step at a time," Claypool said Monday. "Our main goal right now, our main fight, is in Springfield. We believe that the revenue can be secured in the current legislative session. ... The choices we have beyond that are even more painful and we are reluctant to execute those if we have a fighting chance in Springfield."
To have that fighting chance, Claypool and CPS need Rauner as an ally, not an adversary. The governor has often expressed his willingness to help CPS if lawmakers deliver larger reforms that the state desperately needs if it's to grow its moribund economy. CPS and the Chicago Teachers Union should be in the faces of Democratic leaders every day to get the help they need.
Painting Rauner as the villain who forced CPS cuts ignores reality on a Trumpian scale. When you build a budget on illusions, your daydreams die.
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