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Public Affairs coverage from our award-winning staff |
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Daley Hints at Concessions for Teachers Union
Produced by Alex Keefe on Wednesday, August 12, 2009
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Associated Press |
Mayor Richard Daley is hinting Chicago Public Schools teachers may have to forgo a scheduled pay raise to help balance the district's budget.
Chicago teachers are due for a four percent pay bump next year, thanks to their union contract.
But Chicago Public Schools released a dismal budget estimate Tuesday, complete with a $900 million deficit for next year.
To help close the gap, Daley says "everybody has to chip in."
DALEY: No one is an exception to anything on this issue. And I think Ron Huberman and Michael Scott understand that. This is a very, very difficult recession.
Earlier this year, Daley negotiated $24 million in union give-backs to help ease the city's own projected shortfall.
But public schools chief Ron Huberman says he'll deal with skyrocketing pension costs before he thinks about re-opening the teachers' contract.
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Timothy Meegan, Humboldt Park // Wednesday, August 12, 2009 @ 6:24 PM
I am a good CPS high school teacher that works very hard with tough kids. I just completed the National Board Certification process, through which I spent approximately 1680 hours above and beyond my full time teaching responsibilities. Though I am still awaiting my scores, I was angry to learn that the state cut the stipend by 50% indefinitely. Now the city will throw out our contract? What's next, drain the pension fund? This is the only profession where promises of compensation are broken AFTER the employee has performed the work. If politicians think education is too expensive, imagine if educators were paid hourly and the employer actually compensated them according to their previous agreements! Let's compensate politicians like teachers!
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