More Cuts Needed

We'd call this a "good start" except everyone laid off will be rehired shortly, probably with back pay:

• Chicago Public Schools on Monday announced that it laid off 162 employees from its central office and citywide positions last week.

  The layoffs come as CPS works to close a $732 million budget deficit for the upcoming academic year. The reductions are said to generate about $18 million in savings.

  On Tuesday morning, members of the Chicago Teachers Union blamed some of the cuts on a chronic problem with property taxes.

  Cook County property tax bills did not go out on time this summer, starting a chain reaction. A delay in collecting money causes a delay in doling out revenue, which causes a gap in funding.

  CPS has been forced to fill that cash hole with a loan. Once the loan was taken out, interest payments then added even more costs to the district's balance sheets.

Someone had a shocking statistic the other day that claimed there are twice as many non-teaching positions in CPS than there are actual teachers. We don't know the actual numbers, but someone out there does.

Fully staffing these schools - and operating them - when they're only at 5% or 10% of capacity is an excellent place to begin real cuts to the bloated CPS system.

But we'll never see it.