Chicago Board of Education leaders are trumpeting the news that they got 19 of their 20 employee unions to pass up pay raises this fall, with 9,000 workers getting none of the 7 percent salary increases that had been scheduled and saving the board a ton of money.
Sounds good? Maybe too good to be true?
It probably is. First, it`s highly unlikely that teachers will accept a similar offer to swap no raises this year for the board`s pledge to honor its contract in 1992.
Perhaps more important, this deal leaves the board with few good ways to trim expenses and dig itself out of its perpetual money crisis. That`s because the board, seeking another short-term fix, ceded its ability to make major cuts outside of classrooms. Eighteen unions keep contract clauses that preserve members` jobs for two years, even though non-essential staff and outmoded practices in maintenance and support operations waste millions. And 9,000 workers still get a cumulative three-year raise of 14 1/2 percent. No wonder that, for the first time in memory, the other unions rushed to sign contracts ahead of the teachers.
So what does the board do now? Teachers have authorized a strike-one that could plunge the board deeper into a financial chasm by voiding legislation that shifted $50 million into its operating budget.
Supt. Ted Kimbrough will likely go to Springfield and ask the legislature to make available dollars for raises from restricted local funds-taxes set aside for playgrounds and textbooks; possibly a shift of some so-called Chapter 1 poverty dollars from local schools to the citywide budget. There may be another plea to a resistant School Finance Authority to ease the board`s cash-reserve requirement by $35 million.
These options-none very palatable-could fund teachers` raises of 3 to 4 percent and likely avert a strike. Without more money, Kimbrough and board members argue, there simply are no dollars to give teachers any raise, of any amount, this year.
They ask employees to trust that money will somehow be found to fund 7 percent raises next year. They are, at least, starting to look for cuts that could free dollars next fall. But board leadership still seems to think they will be able to win a case for new funding next year in Springfield-an especially dubious prospect in an election year for a redistricted legislature that likely will have budget problems of its own.
There`s no question that the legislature`s massive diversion of Chapter 1 aid from the citywide budget to local school programs left the board in an awful bind. But while whittling away at administrative and custodial jobs, the board has not done enough to trim waste and redundancy, even as it defends such expenditures as a $500,000 subsidy for its headquarters cafeteria.
The job-preservation contracts signed with non-teaching unions foreclosed critical money-saving options. The board could have saved money-this year and for years to come-by giving a modest pay raise and gaining payroll flexibility. Instead, by appeasing its unions today, it has boxed itself into an even smaller corner for this year and the years ahead.
