By Nick Gale, WLS-AM 890

(CHICAGO) In an effort at shared sacrifice, Chicago Public Schools is asking teachers to pay more for their pensions. It’s a teachers contract similar to one that Chicago Teachers Union members rejected in 2016, and it’s leaving a bad taste in CTU president Karen Lewis’ mouth.

“If the Board of Education imposes a 7-percent slash in our salaries, we will move to strike,” Lewis said Monday afternoon.

But CPS CEO Forrest Claypool says everyone has to help in solving a $1 billion budget deficit.

“The state stepped up. Our local taxpayers stepped up. CPS has stepped up. We need teachers to be part of the solution to protect their own jobs and pensions but also to protect our kids and to show good faith to those hard working taxpayers who are sacrificing for them and our schools,” Claypool said.

The proposed budget is set for a vote on August 24. Negotiations between CPS and the CTU continue.