ISBE asking for another big budget

The new education funding formula requires many billions of dollars to work. (Dave Dahl/WJBC)

 

By Dave Dahl

SPRINGFIELD – The Illinois State Board of Education has another big budget ask of the General Assembly.

The total from the general fund would be $15.6 billion dollars for fiscal year 2020, more than twice the current year’s appropriation. And the board’s chief financial officer, Robert Wolfe, reminds us about the new evidence based funding.

“To achieve the goal of the statue, it is our estimate that the state needs to make an additional vestment of at least $660 million each year for the next eight years to get every school district to that 90 percent adequacy level,” Wolfe told the board before its unanimous vote in Springfield Wednesday.

Wolfe has not forgotten early childhood education.

“There is a recommendation of $2.4 billion, approximately,” Wolfe said. “This is our estimate at this time to make services available for the over 315,000 three- and four-year-olds who are not currently served by a quality early childhood program.”

The legislature allocated almost $7 billion to ISBE in the current fiscal year, which ends June 30.

Dave Dahl can be reached at [email protected]

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