Maximum property tax hike sought for Chicago public schools
Chicago property taxes that fund schools would be raised to the maximum allowed by law for the first time in four years — costing the average homeowner an extra $84 a year — under a proposed Chicago Public School budget released Friday.
To fill a $712 million deficit, the first budget outlined by Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s new school team would hike property taxes by $150.3 million, cut spending by $320.7 million, and use $241 million in reserve dollars to keep the system in the black.
Faced with rising costs and the evaporation of one-time federal dollars, the budget marks the second year in a row that CPS plans to spend more than it takes in, a pattern experts call “unsustainable.” And, CPS officials concede, even grimmer days await three years from now, when a pension contribution waiver expires and the system’s pension tab will skyrocket.
