MAYOR WON’T SAY IF HE’LL SAVE CPS SCHOOL DAYS

Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Wednesday refused to say whether he was prepared to borrow money, raid tax- increment financing funds or raise taxes again to prevent the Chicago Public Schools from closing three weeks early.

“Taxpayers of Chicago already are taxed twice. In this state, [ they are] the only people who are doubly taxed on pensions. We pay for every other teacher in the state of Illinois pensions. And then we also pay when we pay our property taxes for our Chicago teachers,” Emanuel said.

“And before I ask them — and I don’t believe it’s right that they should be asked to pay three times when every other person in the state of Illinois is only paying once — I want equity across the system. If you threw in your towel there, what I know about Springfield is they would actually do exactly what they always do: treat the children of Chicago as second- class citizens. And that has to end.”

The mayor was asked how he could countenance lopping three weeks off the school year when he fought so hard — and took a 2012 teachers strike that was Chicago’s first in 25 years — to make that longer year happen.

“You know my view, having fought for a full school day and a full school year when Chicago used to have the shortest in America. And not only for every child, but to make sure that we no longer had about 50 percent of our kids getting only a half- day of kindergarten,” he said.

Earlier this week, the City Council’s Black and Hispanic caucuses filed friend- of- the- court briefs that joined the civil rights lawsuit that CPS has filed against the state.

At the same time, Aldermen Roderick Sawyer ( 6th) and George Cardenas ( 12th) raised the possibility of either raiding TIF funds again or raising taxes and fees yet again to prevent CPS schools from closing early.