School Finance 2006

School funding continues to be a hot topic in Illinois. This past summer the governor announced a plan to sell or lease the state lottery to fund education. In my opinion this is not a good idea. The state already receives over $650 million dollars per year form the lottery that goes to education and selling or leasing the lottery would only bring a short term increase in revenue. I believe that public education is one of the most important functions of the state. Education should be funded through stable sources of revenue such as income tax, property tax and sales tax. The current administration has increased state funding or education during the last three years by selling assets, omitting pension fund payments and using future revenues to find current operations. I think this is a dangerous trend for the state. The State of Illinois currently ranks 48th in the entire nation in the state funding of public education. At some point in time the State needs to develop an equitable plan for funding local schools. The amount of money expended to educate students throughout the state varies greatly and causes inequities in the educational programs for students.

Center Cass School Dist 66 will adopt a balanced budget for FY 07 in September. We are fortunate that we have been frugal and careful with our expenditures living within our means while several districts in our area are suffering severe financial difficulties. In DuPage County it is common for many school districts to operate on a majority of local funds such as property taxes rather that rely on state support. In the 2004-2005 school year our revenues were derived from 85% local sources, 14% state sources and less than 1% federal sources. It is easy to note that the State of Illinois does not meet the obligation of supplying 50% of the cost of public education.

The area of school finance is a very complex issue with many distinct components that impact funding. In future entries I will discuss some of these elements such as EAV, tax caps, general state aide and state funding formulas.