By Victor Skinner
EAGnews.org

CHICAGO – The contentious battle between the Chicago Teachers Union and the city’s public schools essentially boils down to one main issue – labor costs.

That’s why EAGnews.org submitted a public information request to Chicago Public Schools nearly eight months ago to determine how much the school district has been spending on various provisions in the teachers union contract.

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District officials have been ignoring our request, which is particularly troubling since many of our questions pertain directly to the district’s current budget crisis and labor negotiations.

In November, EAGnews.org staff reviewed the Chicago Teachers Union contract with the district and sent 45 specific questions to school officials requesting information on teacher attendance, unused sick day bonuses, automatic raises, health insurance costs, pension costs, substitute teacher expenses, pay for after-school duties, and numerous other labor expenses for the 2010-11 school year.

The information should have been provided in a timely manner under Illinois’ open records laws.

CPS officials denied the initial request because they claimed the 45 questions posed an undue burden on the district. CPS Public Information Officer Cassandra Daniels said school policy limited requests to seven questions per week, or 15 per month.

On February 15, EAGnews.org resubmitted seven questions to CPS, pertaining to employee salaries and insurance, and paid leave time for teachers in 2010-11.

We are still waiting for a response, despite leaving several messages seeking a status update on our request.

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We’re unsure if CPS officials are ignoring our questions because the spending records would reveal the extent of wasted taxpayer money in the school system, or whether the CPS bureaucracy has become so dysfunctional that it’s incapable of processing a simple public information request.

Perhaps district officials are holding back the information to protect the generous financial perks they’ve grown to love. If unnecessary spending on teachers’ unused sick day payouts or longevity bonuses come under scrutiny, then the public may also want to know about administrator salaries and benefits, which are often equally generous.

We believe that Chicago taxpayers deserve to know how their education tax dollars are spent, especially since Chicago teachers have threatened to walk out on students in the fall if they don’t receive massive raises in the next contract.

How much does CPS currently spend on union labor costs? How much do school employees contribute toward their own health insurance? How much money does the district drop every year on automatic, annual raises for teachers?

And perhaps most importantly, why won’t CPS officials reveal how they spend the public’s money?