State education board to seek $653M increase in upcoming budget year
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[January 25, 2024]
By PETER HANCOCK
Capitol News Illinois
phancock@capitolnewsillinois.com
SPRINGFIELD – The Illinois State Board of Education endorsed a budget
request Wednesday that includes a $653 million increase in funding for
PreK-12 public schools.
It’s a request that lawmakers may find hard to accommodate in a year
when the state faces a projected $891 million budget deficit.
PreK-12 education spending currently makes up about one-fifth of the
state’s entire General Revenue Fund budget. The proposed increase, if
approved, would bring the state’s total GRF spending on public education
to just over $11 billion.
“We were pleased to hear that the board, even in a tight budget year,
continues to prioritize necessary investments for districts and students
across the state,” Gerson Ramirez, a lobbyist for the advocacy group
Advance Illinois, said during the meeting.
The proposed budget includes a $350 million increase in Evidence-Based
Funding, the minimum increase required under a 2018 law that calls for
gradually increasing the state’s share of the cost of public education
while focusing new money on the state’s most poorly funded districts.
That includes $300 million for direct funding for the qualifying
districts and $50 million that is distributed in the form of property
tax relief grants.
That law calls for continuing to increase funding each year until all
districts are funded at 90 percent or more of their target “adequacy”
level.
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When the law first went into effect, nearly one in five school districts
were being funded at or below 60 percent of their adequacy level. Today,
no districts are being funded below the 60 percent level, but the state
still has a long way to go before reaching the goal of having all
districts at or above 90 percent of adequacy.
According to a report that accompanied the budget proposal, it would
take another $2.5 billion in EBF to reach that goal.
In addition to the increase in Evidence Based Funding, which districts
use to enhance their general operating budgets, ISBE’s request includes
about $300 million in new or increased funding for several specific
categories of school expenses.
The largest of those is a proposed $112 million increase, or nearly 26
percent, for a program that reimburses school districts for the cost of
providing transportation to students with disabilities. That would be
enough to cover about 84 percent of the total cost for that category of
transportation funding, which is roughly the same percentage the state
was paying before the COVID-19 pandemic.
The package also calls for a $75 million increase in early childhood
education funding to continue Gov. JB Pritzker’s Smart Start Illinois
initiative, a multi-year program that seeks to eliminate early childhood
and preschool “deserts” for 3- and 4-year-old children by 2027.
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![](../images/012524PIX/news_a1.jpg)
State Superintendent of Education Tony Sanders, left, and Illinois
State Board of Education Chair Stephen Isoye speak at the board’s
regular meeting on Wednesday, Jan. 24. The state board approved its
fiscal year 2025 budget request to the General Assembly, which asks
for an increase of more than $650 million from the current fiscal
year. (Capitol News Illinois photo by Peter Hancock)
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2024/Jan/25/images/ads/current/peasleymemorials_lda_2022.png)
That money would enable state-funded preschools to reach an additional
5,000 children next year. State officials estimate that total enrollment
in those preschools will grow to nearly 114,000 in 2025, an increase of
more than 17,000 since 2023.
ISBE’s budget plan also calls for addressing the pressures some
districts are facing due to the large number of international migrants
arriving in Illinois.
Over the last two years, state officials estimate the number of
“newcomers” in Illinois has grown nearly 85 percent, to about 36,200.
Since August 2022, more than 34,000 migrants have been bused or flown to
Illinois by order of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott after crossing that state’s
southern border.
Newcomers are defined as students age 3 through 21 who were born outside
the United States and who have been attending one or more schools in the
U.S. for less than three full academic years.
The proposal calls for $35 million in new funding for a line item called
“supporting newcomers.” That money would be available for such expenses
as hiring bilingual teachers, paraprofessionals and other staff; buying
materials written in the students’ native languages; providing
additional before- and after-school programming; and providing other
supports for children and families.
Funding for ISBE is just one part of the state’s overall annual budget,
but it is one of the largest categories of state General Revenue Fund
spending. It was unclear Wednesday whether Gov. JB Pritzker was
endorsing the request.
The Governor’s Office of Management and Budget issued a report in
November projecting the state could face a budget deficit next year of
$891 million, assuming revenue trends remain stable and the state
continues making all of its required payments into its rainy day fund
and pension funds.
Pritzker is scheduled to deliver his budget proposal to the General
Assembly on Wednesday, Feb. 21.
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Meanwhile, Advance Illinois issued a statement Wednesday that noted
school districts will face their own budget pressures next year when
federal pandemic-related relief programs come to an end.
“ISBE’s proposal serves as a solid road map for investments Illinois
must undertake to meet the comprehensive needs of every child and
student in the state generally, and in the ongoing aftermath of COVID
disruptions,” the organization said.
Capitol News Illinois is
a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering state government. It is
distributed to hundreds of newspapers, radio and TV stations statewide.
It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert
R. McCormick Foundation, along with major contributions from the
Illinois Broadcasters Foundation and Southern Illinois Editorial
Association. |