Those who live in "affluent" neighborhoods—especially those located near a good high school—would pay an extra $100 million in property taxes to help avoid school cuts in poorer areas under a plan being pitched by the Chicago Teachers Union.

The additional property tax is tucked into a larger $500 million proposal released last week by the union to help schools gain more in local funds at a time when the possibility of additional state aid seems to be balled up in Springfield politics.

The proposal for a sort of reverse tax increment financing district so far hasn't received much notice. But CTU allies such as Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, 35th, vowed to push it hard at City Hall. And as it starts to be better known, it's already sparking pretty strong blowback from some of Ramirez-Rosa's colleagues.

As explained by Ramirez-Rosa in an interview, the idea is to create a series of special service areas in neighborhoods deemed to be "affluent" and/or which have top high schools. The alderman and his staff specifically mentioned Jones, Lincoln Park, Lake View and Lane Tech high schools, all of which feature college prep curricula or are located in relatively prosperous neighborhoods.

Each SSA would levy an extra property tax on top of the regular tax that goes to support schools citywide. Those funds would be used to pay costs of the high school, freeing up CPS funds to go to schools in other neighborhoods and so prevent threatened cuts, Ramirez-Rosa said.

"It's not completely fair," the alderman conceded, especially in a year in which property owners in such areas will pick up a disproportionate share of the largest property tax hike in city history. "But it's more fair than asking people who live from paycheck to paycheck to pay more."

But aldermen who represent such areas see it a little differently.

"Pitting one neighborhood against one another is unfair, ill-advised and the wrong approach," said Ald. Brian Hopkins, 2nd, whose ward stretches north and west from downtown. "People who live in higher-income areas currently do more than their fair share" because their property values are relatively high, he added.

"So we'd pretty much have to pay for our schools ourselves" while also paying for citywide needs? asked Lincoln Park Ald. Michele Smith, 43rd. "This is not the way to do this. . . .School funding is supposed to be provided to all schools."

Even Bucktown-area Ald. Scott Waguespack, 32nd, a leading progressive alderman, initially chuckled when I filled him on the details of the proposal.

"I don't think it's a good idea," he said. "Some of these 'affluent' areas already are at the point where they're picking up a big part of the school load." Though variations of the move-more-money-to-poor-areas idea are floating around, the city "hasn't done enough" to cut school expenses, especially for construction projects that could be deferred, he said.

A slightly more neutral reaction came from Rogers Park Ald. Joe Moore, 49th, whose ward is less affluent than others but still somewhat above the citywide average.

"You have to give the CTU points for creative, out-of-the-box thinking," Moore emailed me. "But the fact remains the property tax is a regressive tax. Though the areas surrounding Lake View and Lincoln Park high schools generally tend to be more upper-income, they are not universally so. A lot of working-class folks, retirees and others on fixed incomes live in those communities, and would be disproportionately burdened by another increase on their property tax bills. The problem with focusing on local revenue solutions to our school funding crisis is that it takes our eyes off the main culprit—the highly regressive school funding system in the state of Illinois."

But Ramirez-Rosa argued that, with Springfield stalemated, Chicago has to do what it can.

With median household income in his Northwest Side ward barely a third of that in areas around schools such as Jones, Lake View and Lane Tech, "those who have means" ought to pay a little more, he said.

Update, 2:45 p.m. — A little more reaction, from Ald. Pat Dowell, 3rd, whose South Side ward comes almost up to Jones.

"Most people would want money raised in their neighborhood to stay there," she says. "In the affluent area (of her ward), I think they'd be concerned. They already pay a property tax."