CPS Numbers and Disciplinary Files

We're told these numbers are compiled directly from City of Chicago offices, press releases and various media outlets:

• Chicago spent $639.6 million on illegal-migrant care from August 2022 through 2024.
  
  
  In the same season, Chicago Public Schools faced a $732 million budget hole and layoffs.
  
  
  Only 43% of grades 3-8 were proficient in reading, 27% in math.
  
  
  Forty percent were chronically absent in 2025. Enrollment fell more than 70,000 in a decade, and the district still asked for a record $10.1 billion budget.
  
  
  So the city found two-thirds of a billion for people who skipped the line, and handed its own classrooms a deficit.
  
  
  If Chicago can find $639.6 million for arrivals, who decided the child who already has a desk waits in back?

It's good to see these numbers in a single spot instead of spread all over media outlets that don't cover the entire story and accept what they're fed by City Hall politicos like good little lapdogs. 

In the meantime, the Contrarian people noticed the release of CPS disciplinary files:

• Why is no one talking about the more than 700 Chicago Schools employees who have been disciplined for misconduct — including sexual abuse against students — in just the last year?

  The first news of this sordid state of affairs broke at the end of July when WTTW reported that more than 700 employees of the CPS had been caught engaging in some sort of misconduct, including harassment, financial crimes, and sexual abuse. And this huge number represents only a single year of disciplinary records.

  The CPS has nearly 43,295 employees, so 700 is nearly two percent (1.62 percent is the number here) of the total number of employees. That seems fairly high. Granted, zero misconduct is what any business or organizations strives for, but 1.6 percent is certainly not acceptable, and is higher than the average rate in the private sector, regardless.

  WTTW noted the number of disciplined CPS workers were counted between January of 2025 and January of this year. While most of the misconduct cases were low-level infractions, dozens were clear crimes including harassment, discrimination, fraud, and sexual assaults. Of the latter, 10 employees were either fired or had resigned over accusations of sexual assault involving students.

The Contrarian notes that this was reported by WTTW - an outlet that has viewership that (in many cases) is less than the blog during its heyday. No wonder the City goes there instead of places it might actually get seen. 

An Economic Upturn?

This sounds like a very lib-tarded fantasy at best:

• Chicago’s downtown district, the Loop, is poised to enjoy a busy fall going into the holiday season, as new retail businesses open, office vacancies stabilize, and midweek foot traffic increases, according to a Q2 report from the Chicago Loop Alliance (CLA). 

  Like many downtown commercial districts in the post-pandemic period, the Loop has been riddled with vacant storefronts and a lack of foot traffic. But now, the report says, investment in new construction, combined with refurbishment of existing properties, has reached $673 million. More than 20 new businesses opened in the Loop during Q2 (see the full list below), and more grand openings are set to follow in the coming weeks. These neighborhood additions range from crowd-pleasing chains to local businesses opening their first or second locations. Meanwhile, office vacancies, which have been increasing since 2020, have finally “leveled off,” the report asserts. 

Um...."leveled off" doesn't mean repopulated. It merely means Chicago may have hit bottom.

And just for shits-and-giggles, let's see what that partial list of new businesses looks like:

• Chains expanding in the Loop
• Amorino Gelato, 209 S. LaSalle
• Dos Toros, 1 N. Dearborn
• Kilwin’s, 60 E. Randolph
• Panda Express, 85 E. Wacker
• Seoul Spice, Willis Tower Lower Level
• Kanpai Hot Pot & BBQ, 174 N. Michigan
• Local businesses opening in the Loop
• Espiritu, 1 E. Wacker
• Genki, 174 N. Michigan Ave
• Prasino, 33 S Wabash 
• Velvet Taco, 174 N. Michigan
• The Jibarito Stop, 174 N. Wabash
• The Carlyle Club, 316 N. Clark

Of these twelve businesses, eleven are restaurants and one appears to be a fitness-type center.

According to the statistics, something like 18% of restaurants fail within the first year, 50% within five years. Those numbers skyrocketed during the Plandemic and the entire industry continues to limp along amid the burgeoning plywood forests of downtown Chicago. Over 80% of restaurant income comes from repeat customers, and without corporate occupancy rates jumping from record lows, there isn't a customer base to actually serve.

Conehead needs to expand the corporate presence downtown to trigger a boom of service industry businesses, not hope that eleven restaurants somehow fill the empty city coffers.

By the way - no JJ Fish and nail salons? We're disappointed. 

Yeah, About that Casino Money

Looking less and less likely to ever appear:

• Bally’s has acknowledged its massive debt creates “substantial doubt about its ability to continue” over the next year, when the company is supposed to open its long-delayed Chicago casino complex in River West.

  The statement of “going concern” was included in Friday’s quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission from Bally’s, which says it “is pursuing a number of financing alternatives intended to enhance its liquidity, including asset monetization, an equity sale and debt financing.”

  The disclosure comes as Bally’s butts heads with City Council members who authorized video gambling terminals that the company says will eat away its revenue — providing fodder for Council members who argue that’s just an excuse to slow down a project Bally’s can’t afford to complete.

  Companies are required to issue going-concern warnings if there’s “substantial doubt” about their ability to avoid defaulting on debt over the next 12 months.

Every bad decision that could be made over this boondoggle wasn't simply made - it was embraced and sold to taxpayers as something it never was and almost never could possibly be.

Simply amazing. 

Hey Look....Journalism!

You can tell the Machine doesn't want Conehead running again because stories like this keep popping up as the bought-and-paid-for "media" is told to undermine him:

• When thousands of migrants started flooding Chicago from the Southern U.S. border four years ago, a new report shows a company was paid more than $78 million to do virtually nothing.

  As the migrants arrived, the city scrambled for shelter space and contractors to handle the humanitarian crisis.

  In 2023, NBC Chicago investigations uncovered out-of-control spending by City Hall. That was the first shoe to drop, when we found millions in taxpayer dollars going to contract relief workers in questionable paychecks.

  Now the other shoe has dropped, with a new state of Illinois Auditor General report finding contract employees paid millions of dollars to do no actual work.

This $78 million is on top of the $250 million spent on other ILLEGAL ALIEN expenses after Groot lost her re-election bid.....a quarter of a billion dollars that would be pretty helpful right about now.

Conehead Finds Money Tree

Rahm's Magical Money Tree must have bloomed this past week, and Conehead is taking full advantage:

• Chicago will move ahead with its full $260 million supplemental pension payment, Mayor Brandon Johnson promised the city’s investors Thursday.

  Johnson pledged to make the payment — aimed at chipping away at the city’s towering unfunded pension liabilities — during the Chicago Investor Conference. But as he argued City Hall “cannot simply cut our way out” of its fiscal woes, he did not reveal what new taxes or fees he will propose to balance the city’s next budget.

  “Let me say that one more time: I want to reassure this audience that the city will make the second budgeted supplemental pension payment this year,” he told the investor crowd. “Because of property tax delays from the county, it’s a question of when, not if.”

  The pledge adds another, and possibly final, chapter to the saga of the $260 million payment, which has become a key source of contention between Johnson and the City Council.

Got to love how Conehead claims he "cannot simply cut our way out," without ever making a serious effort to make cuts. 

We'll just remind him where there are plenty of cuts that would save a hundred million tomorrow:

 And that's from three years ago.

Casino Doomed?

It used to be that a casino was a license to print money....but not in Chicago:

• Bally's Chicago is pausing construction on several parts of its permanent casino as a political fight intensifies over the future of video gaming terminals in the city.

  The company says the growing push for hundreds of new terminals could drain revenue from the casino; it's a concern that has divided members of the City Council.

  At issue is a decision made during last year's budget negotiations to authorize several hundred video gaming terminals, or VGTs, as a way to help close the city's budget gap. Bally's is now pushing back, hoping to get the city to reconsider, prompting frustration from some aldermen who argue the casino operator is overstating the threat.

A casino twenty years ago might have solved a bunch of problems.

A casino ten years ago might have alleviated problems that have since grown to huge issues.

A casino tomorrow would probably end up costing taxpayers untold more millions....and still might.

The incompetency is staggering. 

Rats Abandoning Ship?

You can tell a failed administration by the number of people leaving high positions.

For example, Conehead's people:

• City Budget Director Annette Guzman resigned;
  Larritorious Snelling retired;
  CFO Jill Jaworski left;
  CFO Steven Mahr left;
  Deputy CFO Noor Shaikh left;
  Human Resources Dir. Sandra Blakemore left;
  Fleet and Facility Management’s Julia Hernandez-Tomlin left;
  Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Dorian Gatewood fired;
  Manny Whitfield-Director of Violence Prevention and Community Safety also fired.

A whole bunch of financial and money people in the mix. What do they know that isn't being said....or reported....by those "watchdogs" in the media?

That's....Lucrative

It certainly pays to be connected:

• Newly installed interim Chicago Police Supt. Fred Waller is collecting an annual city taxpayer-funded pension of $141,608 while he has been earning more than $210,648 per year as a deputy director, bringing his total annual compensation to $352,256, according to records obtained by WTTW News.

  Waller, 64, has now twice served as CPD’s interim leader, first leading the department from May 2023 to September 2023 before Mayor Brandon Johnson picked Larry Snelling as the city’s top cop. After Snelling took office, Waller stayed on to advise Snelling, serving as deputy director in the superintendent’s office, records show.

  Waller has received pension payments of more than $11,500 per month since he retired on Aug. 15, 2020, and they will continue for the rest of his life, according to records obtained by WTTW News from the Policemen’s Annuity and Benefit Fund of Chicago. Annually, Waller’s pension increases by 3% to cover any increase in the cost of living, records show. He received a pension payment in June, according to documents obtained by WTTW News through a Freedom of Information Act request submitted to the police pension fund.

How many "merit" bumps?

Remember - Given, not Earned.

Crackhouse Owner Speaks

This alderthief has a great idea:

• Ignoring fears that Chicago was “buying high after selling low,” Mayor Brandon Johnson’s most powerful City Council ally on Wednesday forged ahead with his eleventh-hour plan to create a public infrastructure trust to take back the city’s parking meters.

And where would this "public infrastructure trust" get it's funding to buy back the parking meters?

You'll never guess:

• Budget Committee Chair Jason Ervin (28th) formally introduced his long-shot ordinance that would create a nine-member public trust to pool pension and city funds and match the $2.5 billion winning bid submitted by Stonepeak Partners, a New York investment firm, for the city’s parking meters.

Brilliant.

Might we add a suggestion though? If we're going to be taking existing pension funds, it ought to be funded by the best funded first and then working it's way downward through the funding ratios.

First up would be the aldermanic pension funds, which we're certain aren't short a dime.

Second, the teachers pension fund seeing as how they only contribute 2% of their salaries while taxpayers pick up the rest.

Working downward from there, the Fire and Police pensions would be near the bottom of having to contribute to this political boondoggle. 

Oh, and the funding that would be raised (unlikely as it seems) would be applied in reverse, so the worst funded would reap the benefits first since those are the pensions that need saving the most. 

Another Blown $$$ Opportunity

Chicago missed the casino boat a long time ago. Then the River North Casino has turned into a boondoggle of construction delays and missed revenue projections while the suburban Rivers Casino turned into the #1 casino in the state that prints money for Des Plaines.

Now it's going to turn into a lawsuit that Conehead's people will likely lose:

• Bally's casino is warning Chicago aldermen it will sue the city if the City Council does not reverse its decision to legalize video gambling terminals in bars and convenience stores — and the company is offering a deal it says would replace the revenue the city was counting on.

  At a committee hearing, Bally's senior vice president reminded aldermen that a 2022 agreement struck by the Lightfoot administration gave the company a monopoly on virtual slot machines within Chicago city limits. Legalizing video gambling terminals, known as VGTs, outside Bally's property would render that contract null and void, the company said.

  The City Council approved legalizing VGTs as part of its late 2025 budget.

  If the contract is voided, Bally's said it would halt its annual $4 million licensing payments to the city and would no longer honor its commitments to diversity and union hiring.

Chicago politicians could f#@$ up a one-car funeral.

Police Layoffs?

Not likely among the rank and file, but among PPOs without Contract protections? It's been done before waaaaay back under Harold Washington:

• Some Chicago city employees, including police officers, could face layoffs this fall as Mayor Brandon Johnson and members of the City Council's budget accountability coalition clash over responsibility for a projected $98 million midyear budget shortfall.

  Johnson's administration outlined the deficit in its latest budget update, prompting a new round of fingerpointing over stalled revenue plans and the potential impact on jobs and a planned $260 million advance pension payment.

Conehead was bitching about the City Council refusing to enact his Head Tax, something that has been proven time-and-time again to drive businesses OUT of Chicago, some merely establishing their addresses across the street in a border suburb.

Oh, and what the Hell is a "pension advance payment"? 

• The $16.7 billion budget approved by a City Council majority that rejected Mayor Brandon Johnson’s corporate head tax required the city to make a full $260 million advance pension payment to stave off another costly reduction in Chicago’s bond rating.

  The Johnson administration ignored that mandate, made a half payment of $130 million in January, and promised to pay the other half in the second quarter of this year. Now that second installment is in jeopardy.

So Conehead and his people (folks?) lied again.

But he had $500 million for ILLEGAL ALIENS.

$400 million in TIF money for a soccer stadium.

$100 million "redirected" to some anti-violence grifters.

And extra $800 million in fantasy money that might have bought back the parking meters.

Now they might miss a "pension advance payment"?  

Close these Money-Pits

How long have we been pointing this out? Ten years? More?

• Proposed cuts, furloughs and a spending freeze are part of Chicago Public Schools' budget plan as the district works to balance its finances, but the proposal does not include school closures because of an ongoing moratorium.

  The issue has renewed debate over the cost of keeping severely under-enrolled schools open, including Frederick Douglass High School on the city's West Side.

  The school, which can hold about 900 students, now has around 30 students enrolled.

And we all know exactly who is to blame for all this waste:

• "It's costing CPS about $94-95,000 a year per student at this school," Ferguson said.

  According to Ferguson, the average cost per CPS student is typically about $18,000. He also noted that the Chicago Teachers Union contract requires certain staffing levels regardless of enrollment.

  "We're talking about 30 students. We're talking about 30 full-time employees for a student-teacher ratio of one-to-one," Ferguson said.

And of those 30 students, guess how many read, write and math at grade level? Go ahead, guess.

We don't have the answer, but someone probably does. And someone probably has that link we used to use with all of the under-enrolled schools that are wasting literally tens of millions, perhaps hundreds of millions or scarce taxpayer dollars for pretty much zero return on the "investment." 

Now We're Talkin'

Is it a cascade of layoffs inbound?

• Chicago Public Schools officials on Wednesday announced plans to lay off hundreds of teachers and other staff and impose five furlough days to help close a $732 million deficit for next school year.

  The district's budget plan calls for laying off 760 teachers, 801 teachers' aides, and 162 central office employees. The district also plans to furlough staff for five days when students are not required to be in school – such as report card pickup days and teacher training or planning days – during the second semester.

  CPS also plans a midyear spending freeze starting in the second semester.

  CPS said its proposal does not add to the district's roughly $9 billion debt. Instead, district leaders said they're looking to reduce administrative spending, tighten operations, and rely on additional state money to help balance the books.

What state money? Illinois is billions and billions in debt. That's a dry well.

But back to the layoffs - the fact that they can lay off more teachers' aides than teachers tells you that CPS has a manpower allocation problem. And the 162 central office employees is just the usual bureaucracy middle management overstaffing problem that affect every large organization.

If you fire everyone who has the word "assistant" in their job title, you'd save billions over the years....and yes, that includes every CPD employee as well, though in the CPD case, the title "deputy" can also be grounds for being launched. 

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. 

Congestion Fee?

Has this dumbass even been downtown recently? Does he have a view from his rubber room?

• A follow-up report commissioned by Mayor Brandon Johnson lays out an array of revenue-generating options that includes a sales tax on virtually “all consumer services,” taxing high-volume electricity users at a higher rate, and imposing a congestion fee on “vehicles entering or exiting a designated central area during peak periods.”

  To chip away at Chicago’s $36 billion pension crisis and erase the city’s structural deficit, the 23-member group of civic leaders is also suggesting offering retirees lump-sum payouts in lieu of monthly pension checks, consolidating actuaries and administrators of the four city employee pension funds, and restoring the automatic escalator locking in annual property tax increases at the rate of inflation.

Downtown is a ghost town compared to pre-plandemic numbers. Plywood storefronts are everywhere. Restaurants that used to serve the downtown workers are few and far between. Parking is a breeze.

Congestion is something that happens in a thriving metropolis....which Chicago isn't at the moment. Any sort of "congestion fee" will only make people avoid downtown even more so that usual. As will the increased sales taxes and electricity rates.

How about cutting something, like fully-staffed 90%-empty-schools? 

One Reason Chicago is Broke

The CTA is giving away services for free:

• Cook County Sheriff’s Police have spent the last three months patrolling Chicago Transit Authority trains and platforms, the result of a state legislature mandate to assess what’s really happening on Chicago’s rail system.

  [ couple of paragraph of crime stats - go read it at the link]

  One of the most striking findings: on some CTA lines, 80 to 90 percent of riders were not paying their fares. Sheriff Thomas Dart says the problem goes beyond crime — it’s a culture of disregard for basic rules.

Eighty-to-ninety percent of people (and folks) not even paying the fare? We're going to take a wild guess and say, "Red Line." We're also going to wonder why the CTA isn't looking at those ten-foot iron and plexiglass barriers that reduced San Francisco subway crime by nearly 50% and vandalism costs by multiple millions of dollars.

We'll leave the guess about "culture of disregard for basic rules" to you, the readers. 

They Think They Work Too Hard

If this happens, how about some pay reductions?

• Chicago Public Schools says it has no plans to shorten the school year in an effort to save money.

  Despite allegations from the Chicago Teacher’s Union, CPS says that reducing instructional time in a classroom is not an option and would go against the district’s five-year strategic plan.

  CPS admits to facing significant financial challenges, but says at no point was the district considering shortening the school year.

Johnny already can't read, write or do basic math, and the CTU wants to reduce classroom hours?

Like we said, no one in Chicago is getting their tax dollars worth in education measures, so everyone is due a refund for the "product" put out by CTU, starting with pay cuts. 

Remember, Chicago is Broke

But they found the secret Rahm Money Tree somewhere....probably in Conehead's Gift Closet:

• The city could be running its first intercity bus terminal under public ownership by late summer following a vote by the City Council to buy the ailing South Loop Greyhound station.

  The ordinance passed Wednesday allows the city to purchase the terminal at 630 W. Harrison St. for $19 million. The deal also pumps millions into renovating the neglected terminal — and saves the nearly half-million people who use the station each year from potentially being kicked to curbside bus service.

We'll expect this to be losing money within a year.

New Fire Equipment

This article is from two days ago and seems to have little coverage from the local media types:

• The Chicago Fire Department has placed one of the largest emergency apparatus orders in North America, selecting E-ONE and Wheeled Coach to supply 120 new vehicles in a deal valued at more than $100 million.

  The order, placed through Fire Service, Inc., includes 42 E-ONE pumpers, 38 E-ONE aerial ladder trucks and 40 Wheeled Coach ambulances.

  The investment is intended to support firefighter safety, fleet modernisation and reliable emergency response across the city.

We've written before about CFD equipment being so old that the feds threatened to pull accreditation for the entire Department.

And tonight, if you do a google search for "chicago fire department buys new trucks" there aren't any local media outlets covering the story. $100 million is a big deal for one-hundred-twenty pieces of equipment.

Is this because they don't want to embarrass a democrat blue city $hithole that isn't (and hasn't) providing the fire department with appropriate equipment to protect citizens?

Or is it because when you look up E-ONE and Wheeled Coach, they're both based in Florida because Porkulous has driven vehicle assembly lines out of Illinois, so we're sending tax dollars to factory friendly red states?

In any event, congrats to the CFD for finally getting some new vehicles. 

Don't scratch the paint - you might not see another one for thirty years.

Again?

How incompetent are Cook county officials? This incompetent:

• Property tax bills usually sent out in July will once again be delayed, according to Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle.

  Preckwinkle, who announced the two-month delay Tuesday, said she intends to reopen a no-interest loan program for government bodies that rely on the property tax revenue they now won’t get on time.

  Suburban tax districts, such as schools and libraries, that would otherwise need to take out pricey short-term loans to cover their budgets can instead borrow from the county’s $300 million Property Tax Bridge Fund Program, Preckwinkle said. That program mirrors one put in place last year when tax bills were delayed four months due to a computer issue.

Guess who isn't eligible to participate in Prickwrinkle's program?

• Chicago Public Schools, however, would not be eligible for that loan program. That could be a problem for CPS, which last year paid $220,000 in interest per day on short-term loans it took out to make payroll.

  CPS officials said last year’s tax bill delay has forced them to take out at least $1.6 billion in short-term loans for operating expenses and another $246 million loan to keep its teachers pension fund solvent — making for $33 million in interest payments down the line.

Don't worry though - Conehead will figure out some way to stick it to Chicago taxpayers at the behest of his political masters.

This could be a good thing though - getting the tax bills so close to election season might remind people exactly why Chicago, Cook County and Illinois are in such bad financial shape. 

It's the democrats.