Cook County property tax delays have caused a funding deficit for Chicago Public Schools (CPS), forcing the school district to take out over $1.6 billion in loans and make interest payments of up to $33 million. The second installment of 2025 property tax bills, which should have been sent out in the summer, was not distributed until late November, with schools not expecting payments for these revenues until later in the spring. Even the first installment of 2026 is reportedly expected to be over a month late.
The property tax delay can be attributed to a tedious contract with Tyler Technologies, which was intended to upgrade the county’s outdated tax filing computer system. This plan has experienced numerous setbacks and resulted in higher costs than expected. Despite the effort invested into the program, the new system has not had great success, as shown by this costly disruption of property tax rollouts.
Due to the delay, CPS has been forced to take out loans of $1.6 billion to continue operation and $246 million to maintain their teachers pension fund. Over $200,000 is spent each day just to pay back the interest on the short-term loans, diverting funds away from student programs and frustrating school officials dealing with steep financial deficits. For the fiscal year 2026, CPS is already facing a budget deficit of $734 million.
This specific delay in funding is only one of many issues that has plagued CPS in recent years. Student enrollment is dropping across the city, teacher contracts have become rapidly more expensive following COVID-19 and the district has had federal funding pulled in many key areas. This all combines to produce the fiscal nightmare that CPS finds itself in today.
Illinois residents already have a property tax burden of 1.83%, the highest of any state; thus, taxpayers expect to see the fruits of their contributions in a very visible way. When money is not distributed to where it is needed, like public schools, anger often grows within the tax base. According to the Illinois Policy Institute, an organization dedicated to standing up for Illinois taxpayers, nearly three in five Illinoisans do not believe that the value they get back in public services matches their high property tax burden. Most other states with high property taxes make up the difference by having low sales or income taxes, but Illinois has some of the highest taxes in all three categories.
This gap in funding has made the wealth disparities between different school districts more apparent. Wealthier school districts less strained by overcrowded classrooms and overworked teachers have much more money in reserve for funding delays like this, and are able to take out loans much more easily. On the other hand, large and highly strained school districts like CPS are forced into predatory lending traps over issues that were not their creation. It should be the case that school districts are not burdened with deciding how they will be funded, only how they will spend that funding, but this specific issue has caused harm to every school district in Cook County at no fault of their own.