Local officials anticipate the school funding bill approved by the Illinois General Assembly last month will have little or no impact on their districts.
Senate Bill 1947, which was signed by Gov. Bruce Rauner on Aug. 31, will add $358 million to school funding in its first year.
“We’re expecting to receive what we received previously,” said Jennifer Hermes, chief operating officer for Lake Forest Districts 115 and 67. “So it didn’t harm us, but it didn’t help us.”
General state aid makes up only about 2 percent of the education fund for both districts, Hermes said. Almost the entire remainder comes from local property taxes.
“I think it will lower the level of uncertainty regarding state funds,” said Jay Kahn, director of finance and operations for Lake Bluff School District 65. “In the past, it was unclear when we would receive state money so it was difficult to budget. You never knew how many payments you were going to get and whether they would be prorated.”
District 65 receives 4 percent of its budget from the state, Kahn said, with almost all of the rest coming from local property taxes.
While school districts in Lake Forest and Lake Bluff may not see major changes, other districts across the state will.
“Most districts in the state are not adequately funded,” said Bobby Otter, budget director at the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, an Illinois think tank that analyzes state finances and was involved in the bill’s drafting. “The districts that are furthest from adequately funded will take any new money that goes into education.”
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Currently, the state assumes that all students throughout the state cost the same amount of money to educate: $6,119 per year, Otter said.
“We know that’s not the case,” Otter said. “Some students need more resources.”
Students that come from low-income households, are learning the English language or have learning disabilities are among those for whom it costs more to educate, Otter said.
Under the new funding formula, the state uses an “evidence-based model” where 27 different categories are assessed in each school district that have been shown to improve student outcomes. Those categories include how many students are learning English, how many require special education and the number of low income families.
It then looks at how much money is in the district and compares that to how much the district should be spending.
The good news for districts with more property tax revenue such as Lake Forest and Lake Bluff is they won’t see a loss, he said.
“Everyone will get what they got last year at a minimum,” Otter said.
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