It's not a comedy with CPS budgets, but the question 'Who's on first?' shows how the Chicago Board of Education under two mayors has been sabotaging the nation's third largest school system by destabilizing the office of Chief Financial Officer...
Three years ago, Melanie Shaker, Ginger Ostro, and Alicia Winckler were three of the most powerful officials in Chicago Public Schools. Today, only Ostro remains, one example of "management musical chairs" in America's third largest public school system. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.A question for those who think they understand what's going on in Chicago Public Schools and at the Chicago Board of Education: What to John Maiorca, Pedro Martinez, Diana Ferguson, David Wilkens, Peter Rodgers, Malanie Shaker and Ginger Ostro have in common?
Answer: They have all been the "Chief Financial Officer of the nation's third largest school system since the beginning of the 21st Century. Do readers wants to know why CPS hasn't presented the public with its actual proposed budget for FY 2016 now that the Board of Education's August meeting is a mere 20 days away? After all, the public has been hearing about the so-called "pension crisis" [!] and the so-called "billon dollar deficit" [!] since February or March, but at no time have school officials actually provided the public with a budget, even though the law requires that the Chicago Board of Education hold public hearings on its Proposed Budget in June -- and a loophole allows the Board to stall the hearings until August.
Where is the Proposed Budget as of this writing (August 6, 2015) so that the public can examine the Board's claims about its "deficits" and evaluate the rumblings about CPS facing "bankruptcy"?
Nowhere?
And a reasonable explanation as to the problem is that the Chicago Board of Education has been sabotaging itself for more than a decade, and nowhere is that sabotage more clear than in the game of management musical chairs at the "top" of the school system's financial operations. And left out of the lurid headlines about the work of the three bond rating agencies -- Moody's, Standard and Poors, and Fitch -- is the question as to why America's third largest public school system has been undermining the stability and credibility of its financial leadership for the better part of the 21st Century...
