Timezone UTC Offset vs City

When I have my timezone offset set to a city the UTC time is incorrect.

Chicago
Universal time (UTC) is 2018-01-11 17:25:17. Local time is 2018-01-11 11:25:17.

and php echo will return
current_time( ‘mysql’ ) returns local site time: 2018-01-11 17:25:14
current_time( ‘mysql’, 1 ) returns GMT: 2018-01-11 23:25:14
current_time( ‘timestamp’ ) returns local site time: 2018-01-11 11:25:14
current_time( ‘timestamp’, 1 ) returns GMT: 2018-01-11 17:25:14

But when the timezone offset is set to a UTC offset the results are correct.
UTC-6
Universal time (UTC) is 2018-01-11 23:27:12. Local time is 2018-01-11 17:27:12.
current_time( ‘mysql’ ) returns local site time: 2018-01-11 17:27:09
current_time( ‘mysql’, 1 ) returns GMT: 2018-01-11 23:27:09
current_time( ‘timestamp’ ) returns local site time: 2018-01-11 17:27:09
current_time( ‘timestamp’, 1 ) returns GMT: 2018-01-11 23:27:09

In my cPanel PHP Options I have this setting

date.timezone: America/New_York

Is this a bug? Or an error in my theme/plugins.

I did de-activate my plugins and switched to the 2016 Theme and the issue still existed.