Dive Brief:

• In a plan to rectify its floundering budget, Chicago Public Schools is looking to have employees and teachers pay more into the district's pension fund.
• The city will already phase out district pension fund contributions for non-Chicago Teachers Union employees, including central office and support staff, which will save roughly $11 million a year once implemented.
• Now district officials want union employees to face the same structure, with teachers making larger contributions to their eventual retirements.

Dive Insight:

According to District Administration, teacher pension debt that went unpaid in 2014 totaled $499 billion nationwide. In other words, Chicago is not alone in struggling with how to balance its district budget against pension contributions. But the city is unique compared to many of its peers in that local taxpayers are largely responsible for the employee retirement funds. Education officials in other states are grappling with similar quandaries for state pension systems. And they can face a tough road when trying to make changes, which requires communicating clearly with both teachers and state policymakers.

“As administrators talk about the need to make changes to the system, teachers are hearing heated rhetoric about people trying to take their pensions away—and nobody wants that,” Sandi Jacobs, managing director for state and district policy at the National Council on Teacher Quality, told District Administration. “But we have to have a system that we can afford and is sustainable and serves teachers well—and make sure that is part of the message.”