Scenes from the Chicago Teachers Union rally (and the people that joined them)

[strannik01]

Late last week, after over six months of closed-door negotiations, the Chicago Public Schools district officially announced its contract offer to Chicago Teachers Union. And, reading about it on the news, it didn't seem to be a bad offer.It would've prohibited teacher layoffs for economic reasons. Teachers would get salary increases, some cost-of-

Comments

[benicek]

How can a city like Chicago have run out of money?

[hettie_lz]

Because the budget in unbalanced. What should make Chicago more special than any other city? Mostly because of pensions obligations.

[benicek]

They spent the pension fund? It's a joke.

[strannik01]

It's a long, complicated story. The shortest way I can sum it up is that the city revenue is primarily generated through property taxes, and, since the early 1990s, Mayor Richard M. Daley (who ran the city in 1989-2011) has been reluctant to raise property taxes, but he was also reluctant to cut services, which do tend to get more expensive over time (because salaries need to keep up with costs of living). There is also the fact that the same mayor has been using funds that were supposed to go toward covering pension obligations for anything other than pension obligations without a particularly clear idea as to how he would cover it later. And when pension obligations aren't covered, the amount you have to pay also tends to grow

[hettie_lz]

Thanks, I didn't think it was so massive!

Что я еще пропустила в четверг

[livejournal]

User hettie_lz referenced to your post from Что я еще пропустила в четверг saying: [...] е дела, и на демонстрацию я не ходила, а она, оказывается, была очень внушительной! Отчет Игоря [...]