$60 Million?

But the city is broke? The CTA is foundering? The schools are penniless and reduced to begging for crumbs? Where do they find the money?

• The most dangerous stretches of streets around 12 Chicago public schools will be protected by the "eyes and ears" of paid citizen safety patrols under one phase of a $60 million anti-violence campaign unveiled Tuesday.

  Such groups also will be called upon to function as paid, pseudo "truancy officers," visiting the homes of truant kids at 38 of the system's most violent schools to find out why students are cutting school.

• Under the plan -- bankrolled with two consecutive years of $30 million in federal stimulus dollars -- this school year $18 million will be focused on the 38 high schools with the biggest violence problems and plans their administrators and other have written to create a "culture of calm" on their campuses, Huberman said.

Ah, federal money. That explains it - the Obama money is rolling in. How much more money can Obama create out of thin air?

Evidently, quite a lot.

By the way, Shaved points out that $60 million is more than eight-times the amount "saved" in furlough days handed out by Shortshanks.