Persuasive Essay On The Budgeting System

1016 Words3 Pages

Under the pressure of budget cuts, many educational institutions have no choice but to reduce professional teaching staff and increasing class size. However, this short-sighted solution can pose a threat to a school’s future. The consequence could be lower graduation rates and declines in enrollment. Traditionally, the state funding is set by a “quota formula” in which the Central Office dictate the number and types of positions that schools are to receive. According to the report on CPS Budget in the Fiscal Year 2014 (FY2014), the former quota formula “created disproportionate impacts, where one extra student coming or going could mean the difference in a full teacher position gained or lost”. In improving the budgeting system, in the FY2014, …show more content…

According to the article “Fraud and Misconduct Cost Chicago Schools” dated January 11, 2012 from the Education Week, one of the reason that lead to a great loss to the budget to schools and cause damage to CPS leadership is the troubling fraud and employee misconduct. The damage include $1.3 million in “improper benefits paid to retired teachers, systemic abuse of the federal free lunch program at West Side high school, and a scheme by a central-office employee to use school fund to buy items he later exchange for cash”. Most recently, Beatrice Staff, in her article “Corruption in Chicago Public Schools: Former Chief Admits To Fraud” on 13 Oct. 2015 reported that the former head of the CPS Barbara Byrd-Bennett had accepted bribes from multiple companies with amount worth $2.3 million. Accordingly, Barbara Byrd-Bennett was accused of accepting the brides from Gary Soloman and Thomas Vranas, the company owners, to arrange $127,000 into the two accounts setup under her relatives’ names. Additional benefits she received included tickets to multiple sporting events. The investigation proved the evidence found in the email discussions between Solomon and Vranas about the payments arranged for Byrd-Bennett. In particular, Vranas wrote “Everyone sucks and is greedy”. Worst, in the email sent to Solomon on September 10, 2012, Byrd-Bennett wrote “I have tuition to pay and casinos to visit”. One of the executives wrote other email to Byrd-Bennett about the bonus “If you only join for the day, you will be the highest paid person on the planet for that day” (Beatrice 2). As a result, the evidence found during the investigation of twenty mails and wire fraud counts cost Byrd-Bennett twenty years’ jail for each count and up to 400 years in total. Mayor Rahm Emanuel expresses his feeling in the statement saying that he was “saddened and disappointed to learn about the

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