Schools Make Cuts

In order to pay for the negotiated raises, they finally found fat to trim:

• Chicago Public Schools said Friday it will pay for this year’s teacher raises by reducing central office spending and restructuring debt, making no mention of closing any schools.
  
  
  The contract deal, ratified this week by Chicago Teachers Union members, added $103 million to the current school year’s budget, district officials said. Among the planned savings are curbing $4 million in professional memberships and subscriptions, leaving $8 million in non-teacher openings vacant, selling $15 million in surplus property and restructuring debt for another $42 million.

So if all this was known prior to the strike, why wasn't it done to avoid missing 8 days of school?  Oh yeah, Rahm needed a strike in order to break the CTU, but failed miserably and ended up spending how many millions on TV ads that claim he "won" some great battle with the teachers.  Major backfire there.