State education officials present $10.9B budget request to fund public
schools
[April 10, 2026]
By Peter Hancock
SPRINGFIELD — State education officials presented their case this week
for a $10.9 billion budget to fund preK-12 public schools for the next
fiscal year, saying the Evidence-Based Funding formula that has been in
place for nearly a decade is now paying dividends.
“Graduation rates are at a 15-year high,” Steven Isoye, chair of the
Illinois State Board of Education, told a House budget committee
Tuesday. “Achievement gaps are narrowing. Student growth exceeds
pre-pandemic levels and Illinois eighth graders now outperform national
averages in reading and math.”
Funding for public schools is one of the largest single categories in
the state’s annual budget, accounting for nearly one-fifth of all state
general revenue fund spending.
State Superintendent of Education Tony Sanders said ISBE’s request for
FY 2027, at $10.9 billion, represents a reduction of $278.5 million from
this year, due mainly to the transfer of early childhood block grants to
the new Department of Early Childhood. After accounting for that shift,
he said, the request represents a net $469.7 million increase for other
areas of preK-12 education.
“We are very conscious of the state’s tight fiscal environment, and so
we prioritized the most crucial funding streams and those investments
that will have the most direct impact on student success,” Sanders said.
The upcoming fiscal year, which begins July 1, will mark the 10th year
of funding under the Evidence-Based Funding formula that lawmakers
approved in 2017. That formula is intended to shift a greater share of
the cost of funding public schools onto the state, and away from local
property taxes.
The plan called for adding at least $300 million in new state funding to
public schools each year, plus an additional $50 million in property tax
relief grants for certain high-tax districts.
It was also intended to achieve greater equity in school funding by
establishing an “adequacy target” for each school district — an estimate
of how much it should cost to operate the district, based on
cost-related factors like student enrollment, poverty rates and the
percentage of English language learners in the district — and giving the
bulk of the new funding to districts with the greatest financial need.
Since enactment of that law, general revenue fund spending for public
schools has grown from $8.2 billion in Fiscal Year 2018 to nearly $11.2
billion this year. Also during that time, Isoye said, out of 851 school
districts in the state, the number that are funded at or above 90% of
their adequacy target has grown from 194 to 313.
ISBE’s request includes the full $350 million for Evidence-Based Funding
and property tax relief grants as well as increases in transportation
and other mandated categories of spending that are not covered by the
EBF formula.
That request is higher than Gov. JB Pritzker’s proposed budget which,
for the second straight year, did not include funding for the property
tax relief grants.
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Illinois State Superintendent of Education Tony Sanders, left, and
State Board of Education member Patricia Nugent, present the
agency’s $10.9 billion budget request to a House appropriations
committee Tuesday, April 7. (Capitol News Illinois photo by Peter
Hancock)
Speaking to reporters at a news conference in March, Pritzker said he
was committed to addressing the inequities in the property tax rates
people pay to fund their local schools, but he did not believe the
relief grants called for in the EBF law were addressing the issue.
“We’ve got to figure out, how do we do that better, and I don’t think we
have the answer quite yet,” Pritzker said. “But it didn’t seem
appropriate for us to just throw the money into the program without
having a better potential outcome.”
Republicans on the appropriations panel questioned why the increased
spending under the EBF system hasn’t resulted in lower property taxes
throughout the state.
“I’m just wondering, if they’re 90% adequate, and 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?” asked Rep.
Blaine Wilhour, R-Beecher City.
“I know that Evidence-Based Funding has been a great boon for school
districts across the state,” Sanders replied. “We still do not have all
school districts to 90% or greater. We still have a lot of districts
that are far away from 90% adequacy.”
Sanders also pointed to the other mandated categories of spending such
as transportation, for which the state only pays prorated portion of the
total cost.
“So as costs increase for fuel, bus driver salaries, special education
salaries — when the state’s share is not made up, then it has to go
someplace,” he said. “You don’t pick that up through your Evidence-Based
Funding formula, so you turn to your local property taxpayers.”
The committee took no action on the budget request. The panel’s ultimate
recommendation for preK-12 school funding will be included in the final
budget bill that lawmakers will vote on at the end of the legislative
session, which is scheduled to conclude May 31.
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