The Policy Shop: The Chicago Teachers Union’s new tax-grabbing power play

This edition of The Policy Shop is by Mailee Smith, senior director of labor policy and staff attorney.

The Chicago Teachers Union doesn’t make an investment unless it’s going to pay off.

They and their affiliates put $2.5 million into their lobbyist’s campaign to get him elected Chicago mayor. The same folks spent $1.5 million to ensure private school choice for low-income families stayed dead so they could continue building their education monopoly. Now CTU has put $200,000 behind their man the mayor’s March 19 campaign asking voters to let him hike Chicago’s real estate transfer tax to generate $100 million.

CTU, Mayor Brandon Johnson and the other advocates claim the money’s to help the homeless. But the leak of the CTU contract demands shows they again are true to their roots: What’s in it for me?

Johnson and the city have laid out no details as to how the money would help homeless Chicagoans. Nothing in the ballot language itself lays out a plan. If passed, it would allow the city to raise taxes without binding the city to use the funds generated in any explicit way that guarantees helping the homeless.

That makes CTU’s financial backing of the tax hike proposal all the more alarming. Without a commitment to Chicagoans on how the money raised by the real estate transfer tax will be used, CTU could use its power over Johnson and the city to use the tax as a slush fund for its own political purposes.

And here’s where CTU bosses show that’s exactly their intent: Their contract proposal waxes on about housing for 20,000 homeless students, but before listing anything it intends to do for them there is this: “Financial assistance for CTU members to live & work in the city.”

The median Chicago teacher’s salary is over $93,000. The last contract cost Chicago Public Schools an additional $1.5 billion, the total costs of the contract were estimated at $3.1 billion annually by 2024 and made CPS teachers among the highest-paid of the nation’s big districts.

So these are the people who need housing assistance? Folks making nearly $100,000 in a city where the median income is $45,840?

There are many other demands CTU will be pushing with Johnson this summer as they work on the next teachers contract. Sure would be nice if the cash-strapped city had, oh, let’s say an extra $100 million lying around to help with those demands?

Wrap a tax grab up in nice, progressive terms about “mansion tax” and helping the homeless. Who wouldn’t vote for that?

How about anyone who knows the truth behind the “mansion” claims. How about anyone who understands small businesses are Illinois’ most fertile job creators and the surest path off the streets for a homeless Chicagoan.

Few “mansions” sell in Chicago. Nine times as many commercial properties worth $1 million or more are sold. The tax would subject 5,142 commercial properties in Chicago to much higher taxes if sold.

Here are five businesses “Bring Chicago Home” would consider to be “mansions” if the tax hike were to pass:

• Pequod’s Pizza: $1,328,904 property ($2,611 hike if sold)
• Lou Mitchell’s: $1,442,276 property ($4,028 hike if sold)
• Mr. Beef: $1,507,060 property ($4,908 hike if sold)
• Waveland Bowl: $2,040,604 ($16,913 hike if sold)
• The Vic Theater: $1,534,648 ($5,529 hike if sold)

The extra thousands Johnson would take as taxes could go to startup costs for a new business, especially in a city that already burdens businesses with the nation’s second-highest commercial property taxes.

If buying a commercial property is more expensive, fewer people will do it. National pizza chains can afford the higher price tag for new properties, but it could have sunk local businesses such as Pequod’s when they were first trying to get started.

If the goal is to help people escape poverty and homelessness, a first step would be to help small businesses thrive and create more jobs. Nothing cures poverty like a job.

Early voting in Chicago is underway for the March 19 primary, with Johnson’s tax hike plan near the bottom of the ballot. While a Cook County judge ruled the question invalid and unconstitutional, that ruling is being appealed and the question remains on the ballot.

Chicagoans should still vote on the question and let Johnson and the CTU know what they think of this tax hike.

Click here to check your voter registration information.

Paid for by Vote No on Chicago Real Estate Tax