Public school educators got some of what they wanted in the state's recently approved budget, but McLean County superintendents say there are still some issues left unresolved.
The evidence-based model for K-12 public schools to close equity gaps led to an added $307 million in funding in the budget that passed through the Illinois legislature last Saturday. This is the first time since 2020 that the General Assembly did not increase the budget by at least $350 million, Chalkbeat Chicago reported.
Educators saw other priorities missing. The state requires schools to provide services such as transportation, school breakfast and lunch and textbooks to students who need them. The state then reimburses the school district for some of the costs associated with these "mandated categoricals." Not all of the costs are reimbursed, however, and the new state budget added no money in this area.
“So when you don't add new money and expenses go up, we're actually going to receive less money, like a greater proration of those funds towards the upcoming school year's budget,” said Kristen Weikle, Unit 5 superintendent.
School budgets are passed before the state budget is, meaning school districts like Unit 5 must account for what they need to spend on things like transportation before they find out what percentage the state will provide reimbursement for.
“Every [bus] route costs around $50,000, and so when we're not getting that reimbursement back from the state at an adequate level, then the additional cost falls to the local districts and taxpayers,” said Weikle.
The lack of new money also hurts rural districts like Heyworth, south of Bloomington-Normal. The state will reimburse Heyworth for about 70% of transportation costs.
“It’s just having its ripple effect to the point where we're all in this tight spot,” said Lisa Taylor, superintendent. “And we were hoping they would put some funds there, because they see this happening in all of our districts, but I think there just wasn't enough money to go around.”
The Village of Heyworth and its school district are working to reduce the amount of areas where buses are needed.
“Especially any area where there's smaller sidewalks needed, you know, maybe just connecting to them and then we wouldn't have to transport from certain neighborhoods,” said Taylor.
It could take upwards of a year for the village to get the money needed to fix the sidewalk situation.
Jeff Baughman, superintendent of the LeRoy school district, said in a written statement that the new evidence-based funding is a significant positive but distracts from the lack of transportation funding.
“Transportation is a real cost with a gap that has to be filled. The only way to fill the gap when the state comes up short is with local dollars,” added Baughman.
Higher education funding
Following passage of evidence-based funding for K-12 schools in 2017, advocates have been pushing for a similar overhaul of higher education funding. They came away empty-handed during the spring legislative session.
The plan, which has been in development for the last four years, calls for adding roughly $1.7 billion in new university funding over the next 10-15 years, but distributing that under a formula that would give priority to schools that are currently the least adequately funded.
“Instead of just saying, across the board, every school is going to get such and such, you take an extra amount of money and you say, OK, over and above what you get every year from the state of Illinois, we're going to have a special fund that's going to fund universities based on what they need,” said Democratic Sen. Dave Koehler, a bill sponsor who represents Peoria and Bloomington-Normal.
The University of Illinois was a major opponent of the plan, saying the system would face cuts if it passed. Koehler said U of I's status as a flagship university in the state should not have outweighed other public universities like Illinois State, which could stand to benefit.
The proposal was discussed but didn't pass during the spring session.
The new budget does give a 1% increase in operating funds for all public universities, with an additional 2% increase set in case of loss of federal funds in the coming months.
Koehler said Illinois State University needed the full 3% in funding soon.
“I don't like it. The universities don't like it. The governor asked for it just as a hedge against the state becoming unstable," he said.
