Chicago has been responsible for funding its own teacher pensions for more than 100 years. When the mayor was given direct management authority over Chicago schools in 1995, the state legislature declared a good-faith intention to help CPS by contributing 20 percent to 30 percent of the pension costs every year. The state also began to give CPS roughly $250 million extra per year in annual block grants that no other school district was eligible to receive. In the last four years alone, that extra block grant has netted CPS an additional billion dollars. These special payments have more than compensated CPS for the normal cost of its pension fund over the last 15 years.