Chicago Public Schools want permission to borrow up to $945 million in new bonds

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Sun Times:

A cash-strapped Chicago Public Schools seeks to issue almost $1 billion in new bonds, the district announced in a public notice Tuesday.

 

That’s as the Chicago Teachers Union, angry that CPS’ projections for a balanced budget count on union concessions, offers strike training this weekend.

 

The latest borrowing for the broke school system will be up to $945 million “for the purpose of financing the rehabilitation, renovation, construction and acquisition of school and administrative buildings and equipment, site improvements and other real and personal property, funding of contract obligations, the purchase of school grounds for the construction of or additions to school buildings and costs of issuance and other costs and reserves related to the foregoing.”

 

The district will hold a public hearing at 8:30 a.m. on Aug. 24 at its headquarters, 42 W. Madison, just before its 10:30 a.m. meeting, when the Board of Education will vote on authorizing the borrowing.

 

CEO Forrest Claypool told reporters Tuesday that the authorization would support capital improvements over multiple years and that a $45 million capital levy recently passed by the City Council would primarily pay the bonds back.

 

“We are confident that investors will find that acceptable,” he said, noting that the board would have to approve actual bond sales when they’re presented in the future.

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‘Bonds equal taxes’ message opposed by schools - Texas

 

Watchdog’s poster boy for out-of-control school district spending showed up at the state Capitol on Monday to argue against a proposal requiring more disclosure of the full costs of school bonds.

 

Reformers say that Texas’ runaway local borrowing suggests that voters aren’t fully informed about bond costs, and that one answer would be including the full cost of a bond on the ballot, along with the size of the tax increase required to repay it with interest.

 

Representatives for local governments argued that focusing on costs could scare voters away from bonds, and defended the status quo.

 

An assistant superintendent for the Alvin Independent School District – which was made briefly famous by a widely read Watchdog article last fall headlined “Small town wants to build 5 of the costliest schools in Texas history” – told the state Senate’s Intergovernmental Relations Committee that his school district had provided its voters comprehensive information on a recent bond package, with ads, mailers, and meetings, which he said was a better approach than a limited ballot disclosure focused on costs.

 

http://watchdog.org/273521/bonds-equal-taxes/

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Chicago Teachers Unoin Big Bargaining Team urges teachers to walk if no deal by Oct

 

The Chicago Teachers Union’s Big Bargaining Team wants the union to walk off the job if a contract deal isn’t reached by October.

 

That’s according to the union’s latest contract bulletin, which is urging its members to prepare during the first weeks of school just in case.

CTU President Karen Lewis has said her members will report to work on the first day of school, but that they will not go another school year without a new contract to replace the one that expired on June 30, 2015.

 

http://chicago.suntimes.com/news/ctu-big-bargaining-team-urges-teachers-to-walk-if-no-deal-by-oct/

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Father, son, who scammed schools out of millions, plead guilty

 

A suburban father and son accused in 2014 of scamming public school districts out of millions — only to post diamonds and rubies to get out of jail — pleaded guilty Tuesday to mail fraud.

Jowhar Soultanali, 61, of Morton Grove, and his son, Kabir Kassam, 37, of Wheeling, each face a maximum of 20 years in prison after admitting to U.S. District Judge James Zagel they broke the law. An attorney also entered guilty pleas for the pair’s Niles-based tutoring businesses, Brilliance Academy Inc. and Babbage Net School Inc.

Soultanali and Kassam offered plea declarations to the judge, still quibbling with some of the accusations against them. Those disagreements will likely be sorted out at their sentencing hearings, which have not been scheduled.

The feds accused Soultanali and Kassam in 2014 of bribing education officials across the nation with cash, Caribbean cruises and strip club visits. They also used their tutoring businesses to scam $33 million in tutoring money out of more than 200 public school districts, the feds say. They did so by submitting false attendance records to the schools, according to their indictment.

Their companies were paid at least $23 million by Chicago Public Schools, and the two, for a time, lived the high life, at least until they had to post their riches to maintain their freedom.

 

http://chicago.suntimes.com/news/father-son-who-scammed-schools-out-of-millions-plead-guilty/