Sources of Revenue for Illinois public Schools
October 22nd, 2009
One of the largest sources of revenue for Illinois that is used to fund the state education is property tax. According to a report published recently property tax is the largest source of funding for the Illinois public education fund and in 1997 comprised some 57% of all monies used to pay for schools and education within the state.
This holds true mainly for those school districts in the north where the property taxes are substantially higher than those in the southern part of the Illinois. Revenue must of course still be raised to help pay for the schools in the southern counties despite the lack of tax base in any given county. Property tax is bases on assessed value of the each privately owned property in the state. In the northern counties these values tend to continually rise as the income in these areas continues to grow.
However in the southern counties where much of the land is farm land the values do not change very much from year to year making it difficult to keep up with the rising cost of education even in the more rural areas.
In order to bring more revenue in for Illinois schools the state has instituted a system commonly known as the “State Equalization Factor”. This is more commonly referred to by state residents as the “Multiplier” this program was designed to bring all counties with a lower tax bases up to the state required one-third of assessed value. Another way to look at this is that if your house is assessed for $600,000 you will pay taxes on $200,000 and this is known as the assessed valuation.
The way this works is that as long as the house is properly assessed for fair market value the multiplier is assessed at 1.0, however if the county under assesses the value of the house the state will add on to the multiplier to bring the taxes more in line with those which a similar house in other regions of the state would normally pay. This is generally applied on a county as a whole rather than against any one house in particular so that the Illinois revenue generated by each county stays at or close to the state mandated 33% for each county.
The second main source illinois dept of revenue public schools comes in the form of general state aid and is distributed to the school districts based on a formula that makes sure that those schools in districts with the least wealth receive the most money. The theory is that each year the schools must file a form showing the equity valued assessment (EVA) per student in their schools. Those with a higher EVA are considered to be a wealthier school district and receive less in state aid.
This plan is supposed to ensure that those students living in poorer districts receive the same opportunities as those in the wealthier districts. Unfortunately most of the time the school revenue in Illinois falls short of the money needed to provide for an equal education across the state and new plans are being looked at to increase funding for the school system.
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