School districts in prosperous areas can raise most of their budgets from property taxes, but districts in low-income or rural areas often have to rely on General State Aid to fill out their budgets.
For the past several years, GSA has been “pro-rated,” or cut, but under Governor Bruce Rauner it's been fully funded. However, that doesn’t mean those districts are getting everything promised.
Several line items for things like transportation and special education — known as 'mandated categoricals,' or MCats for short — continue to be reduced by 10 percent or more.
Chuck Lane, superintendent of Centralia High School, says his school gets 60 percent of its budget from the state, so these percentage-based cuts impact his school more than prosperous districts.
“I mean, fully funding the state aid formula’s great, but when you’re looking at the MCats, if they’re not giving us those, or pro-rating those, it’s really hurting us a lot more than it does a district that has 6 percent of their funding from the state," Lane said.
Even these partial payments have been delayed, thanks to the ongoing budget impasse. Centralia is still waiting for transportation funds that should have come before the school year started.
