Illinois school districts are receiving a combined $307 million more in state funds this year for additional teachers, reducing class sizes and classroom technology improvements.
All told, the Illinois State Board of Education’s evidence-based funding program will distribute $8.9 billion to school districts statewide this school year.
Nearly $1.4 billion is headed to 102 suburban school districts in the Northwest and Western suburbs, ISBE records show.
“The additional EBF funding will be used to support educational programming, including hiring the additional teaching staff needed to maintain the district’s current class size targets as well as additional support for our growing English Language Learner populations,” said Wheeling Township Elementary District 21 Superintendent Michael Connolly. “We will also utilize portions of the additional funding to defray the increasing costs of operations, including increased transportation, utility and costs for materials and services.”
All districts received some level of increase in their annual allotment, but the size varies based on the district’s funding “adequacy level.” The districts are broken into four different tiers, with under-resourced districts in Tier 1 receiving larger portions of the funds, while fully funded districts in Tiers 3 and 4 receive fewer dollars.
District 21 is a Tier 2 district that began receiving part of its $14.2 million annual allocation Aug. 10. That’s roughly $400,000 more than last year. Last year, the district’s increase was roughly half that.
“Equity is at the heart of Illinois’ funding model,” state education Superintendent Tony Sanders said. “While we recognize the path to full funding adequacy is ongoing, the data continues to show clear progress since the start of EBF.”
The annual allocations have grown from $6.8 billion when it originated in the 2018-19 school year.
“These resources are critical to our ability to close opportunity gaps and provide all students with access to the programs and supports they deserve,” said Ann Williams, Elgin Area School District U-46’s deputy superintendent of operations.
U-46 is the state’s second-largest school district behind Chicago. U-46 is receiving roughly $306.3 million in EBF funding this year, up about $5 million from the previous year. The increase is significantly less than what the district experienced last year when it received a nearly $19 million year-over-year increase. The district moved from a Tier 1 district to Tier 2 over the past year, ISBE records show.
Kindergartner Benji McGlone smacks the historic bell while filing in for the first day of classes at Washington Elementary School in Elgin recently. The bell is original to the 1891 building.
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“The lower-than-expected increase means U-46 will need to continue exercising fiscal discipline and carefully prioritize investments,” Williams said. “Plans for next year’s budget will be adjusted to reflect the revised revenue outlook.”
Most of the 102 suburban districts analyzed fall in Tiers 3 and 4 — 62 of them in all. Tier 1 districts are East Maine Elementary District 63 in Cook County, West Chicago Community High School District 94 in DuPage County, Central Unit District 301 in Kane County and McHenry High School District 156 in McHenry County.
Lake County has four elementary districts in Tier 1 — Gavin, Big Hollow, Lake Villa and Grayslake. There also are two unit districts and two high school districts in the lowest tier, Round Lake, Wauconda, Mundelein and Grant.
Those 12 districts combined are receiving $203 million in EBF allocations this year.
“EBF has been a very effective model since its implementation, as we’ve seen a significant decline in both the per-pupil adequacy funding gap and aggregate funding gap,” said Ralph Martire, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Tax and Budget Accountability. “By the metrics that you want to evaluate the distribution model, it is effectively driving resources to the students that need it the most.”
But Martire expressed concerns that other levels of state education funding are decreasing at a higher rate than the state is increasing EBF revenue to the districts. The state requires a minimum $300 million increase in EBF funding a year, which Martire described as an arbitrary “political number not based on anything.”
Couple that with federal education funding uncertainty under President Donald Trump’s oversight, and Illinois school district finance officials are being overly cautious with budgeting.
“Every district in the nation is trying to figure out the impact of that,” said Mike Vargas, assistant superintendent of finance at Marquardt Elementary District 15. “It certainly helps that we’re in a state that emphasizes education funding, but there’s still a lot of unknowns.”
Many district officials anticipate the loss of federal funding to get worse in the coming years.
“It is a definite concern,” Connolly said. “While in the current fiscal year we are seeing only slightly reduced federal funding, we are very concerned about the potential for deep cuts in federal funding for the 2026-27 school year. As such, we will be watching the situation very closely, and EBF funding will be even more critical in our ability to maintain our educational programming.”
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