Chicago Public Schools to BORROW $389 MILLION to avoid ending school year early

Cuts are “not part of the conversation”

Chicago Public Schools plans to borrow $389 million to make it through the current school year, money officials hope to pay back with overdue state aid payments. The borrowing will be expensive because of the district’s junk bond rating, and would only serve to avert a financial crisis until next fiscal year, when CPS will face another massive budget deficit, the Chicago Tribune reports.

Chicago Chief Financial Officer Carole Brown said the board will vote Wednesday on a plan to borrow $389 million to help cover a $721 million payment to the Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund. The state owes the district $467 million in past due state aid payments, but CPS can only borrow up to 85 percent of that amount, Brown said.

District officials are banking on funds from a new $250 million pension property tax levy this summer to cover the rest.

“After a lot of hard work by the CPS and city financial teams, and many discussions with their lending partners, tomorrow we will brief aldermen on the district’s finances and the financial plan for the remainder of the CPS fiscal year,” Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s spokesman, Adam Collins, said in a statement.

City officials had threatened to cut days off the end of the school year to balance the budget, but Collins said Friday that cuts are “not part of the conversation” with aldermen, NBC Chicago reports.

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