CPS To Cut 1400 Jobs After Making $634M Pension Payment

(CHICAGO)   As many as 1,400 Chicago Public Schools jobs will be affected starting as soon as Wednesday.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel and interim CPS CEO Jesse Ruiz will lay out a plan Wednesday to fully fund the school district’s teacher pensions. The announcement came after Tuesday’s 11th hour $634 million pension payment.

In a statement, CPS confirmed at least part of the money was borrowed and there will be 1,400 layoffs. The district said that not all of those positions are teachers, but some of them are.

The Chicago Teachers Union reacted Tuesday night to the announcement.

“I can tell you it’s dismaying news. It will have an extremely harmful effect on students who are disproportionately poor, students of color that are in Chicago Public Schools,” CTU Vice President Jesse Sharkey said.

Mayor Emanuel said one issue is that CPS does not receive as much money from the state as other districts do when it comes to pension subsidies.

“In Aurora they can focus on education. In Winnetka, they can focus on education. In Chicago because of the way the system is set up, we can focus on a pension payment. If they make this payment then it’s going to raise a whole other set of questions which is how does the board fund itself and operate the schools next year in a way that will do right by the people that work in them and the people that go to them,” Emanuel said.

The Chicago Teachers Union contract expires Tuesday night at midnight.