The Chicago Board of Education will be asked Thursday to approve a contract to reimburse the city for a long-disputed $175 million pension payment for non-teaching school employees — but only if the City Council agrees to declare a more than $1 billion tax increment-financing surplus to bail out Chicago Public Schools.

In a letter to City Council members earlier this week, Board President Sean Harden thanked the majority of alderpersons who twice “expressed support for an unprecedented TIF surplus to help balance both the city and CPS budgets.”

The letter reminds alderpersons that the board approved a budget that “commits to paying the District’s portion” of the Municipal Employees and Benefit Fund pension payment “with TIF surplus funds that exceed $379 million, and we are prepared to c

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