The employees stayed in four and five-star hotels like the Bellagio and Venetian. Some flew to Sin City costing taxpayers over $1,000 for each person in airfare alone. I recently checked prices and found round trip airfares for less than $500 from Chicago Midway to Las Vegas. The price tag for all this taxpayer funded frivolity was over $26.6 million.
No wonder the Chicago Teachers Union is asking for more money from the Illinois Legislature.
The Office of Inspector General in their report dated November 12, 2025, found the professional development conferences these employees attended were also conducted in Chicago. Yep, right in their own backyard. But alas, in 2023 one of the years the conference was offered, only twenty-three employees elected to attend in Chicago. And, when it was offered virtually only one person attended between 2022 and 2024.
Evidently, it’s more fun to go to Las Vegas on the taxpayer dime than to go across town in Chicago.