(The Center Square) – The Illinois State Board of Education wants almost $11 billion in state funds for the 2027 fiscal year, saying it wants to continue efforts to better fund public school districts in order to provide better outcomes for Illinois students.
According to department leadership, the request is an increase from current year funding, but it would be partly offset by a transfer in oversight for some grants to the new Department of Early Childhood. The increase in funding requested is roughly $470 million when accounting for the change.
State Superintendent of Education Tony Sanders said the request includes $50 million for property tax relief grants distributed to school districts with high tax rates, based on district needs.
Funding for the grant program was absent from Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s proposed budget earlier this year.
Rep. Blaine Wilhour, R-Louisville, questioned the board’s request and was highly critical of the state’s evidence-based school district funding formula – which aims to better fund public schools while lowering local property taxes through increased state spending.
“There were a bunch of schools that you said were at 90% adequacy,” Wilhour said. “We’ve got probably 25% of the schools in the state of Illinois that are at full financial adequacy. Why aren’t we seeing property taxes come down?”
Sanders said rising costs of operations, alongside many districts not yet reaching funding benchmarks due to underfunding from the state, have left school districts to push the costs onto local taxpayers.
Questioning personnel inefficiencies, Rep. Martin McLaughlin, R-Lake Barrington, said there has been a drop in student enrollment by 200,000 between 2017 and 2025, while high-paying administrator hirings – alongside teacher and support staff – have increased.
“Everything that’s in the formula was based on research that had been done that shows what the appropriate ratios would be,” Sanders said. “That led to better outcomes for kids and I think that’s why you see this increase.”
Making up one of the largest spending categories by the state each year, the preK-12 budget request will be taken into consideration by lawmakers as they near the end of the spring session.
