CHICAGO – Chicago Public Schools wants to borrow up to $700 million to cover recent projects and restructure current loans, the latest proposal in a district in perpetual financial crisis.

A proposed resolution for today’s board meeting would include $300 million in bonds to pay for air conditioners and playground upgrades funded using short-term loans, and would devote another $400 million to refinancing existing loans to save money, CPS spokesman Bill McCaffrey told the Chicago Tribune.

“This is not a ‘scoop and toss’ restructuring,” district officials wrote in a statement to the Tribune Tuesday. “It’s pure refunding for savings and the life of the bonds are not being extended.”

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The Tribune released a series last fall about CPS’ borrowing troubles, and detailed the “scoop and toss” approach school and city officials have used to avoid debt payments in the recent past.

“…CPS has increasingly used refinancing to delay principal payments as they come due, buying short-term relief at a higher long-term cost. A 2012 refinancing delayed until at least 2033 $60 million worth of principal payments due in 2013 and 2014, driving up interest costs,” the Tribune reports.

“Used often at City Hall for many years, this strategy is dubbed scoop and toss, because the new loan ‘scoops’ up the debt and ‘tosses’ it into the future. Steering clear of the tactic could help CPS in the eyes of ratings agencies.”

According to the news site, CPS avoids voter approval usually needed to issue debt by pledging revenue from per-pupil state funding toward the bonds.

Regardless, Laurence Msall, president of the Civic Federation watchdog group, believes school officials owe it to taxpayers to better explain how they’re handling the district’s $6 billion debt load.

Based on current enrollment numbers, that’s about $15,113 of debt per student.

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“As and educational institution that represents the bulk of most Chicagoans’ property tax bills, the district has an obligation to communicate its plan for managing he district’s short-term and long-term financial needs,” Msall told the Tribune.

Nearly everyone discussing the proposal online thought it was a bad idea, and several blamed politicians and the city’s teachers union.

“This story looks familiar. I remember when Detroit started to ‘borrow’ to pay for its past. Also reminds me of folks who get another credit card with a lower interest rate to ‘pay off’ another card,” myhearthurts commented on the Tribune site. “If you don’t have the money now, what makes you think you’ll have it in the future!”

Duke71 described the situation as a “death spiral.”

“Increasing debt, shrinking populations and (the Chicago Teachers Union) going on strike unless their exorbitant salary increase demands are satisfied,” Duke71 posted. “They must be expecting the state to bail them out.”

“Why be fiscally responsible today when you can continue to leverage the future?” poster ChicagoTRS questioned. “The bills never really come doe … do they?”

Indiana resident EB Indy offered a solution with Chicago parents and taxpayers frustrated with the district’s never-ending cycle of increased debt and taxes.

“Don’t be stuck paying the tab on the billions of unfunded debt that Chicago has,” EB Indy posted. “Come on over to Indiana and bring happiness, prosperity, freedom, and progress back to you and your family.

“Low taxes, tons of jobs and opportunity, better schools, fiscally responsible government is just the start,” according to EB Indy, who left the link to the Chicagoans Moving to Indy Facebook page.