Top 25 Illinois School Districts With Most in Deficit, Surplus Spending

With fewer state dollars being appropriated for K-12 education funding, deficit spending by Illinois school districts has risen sharply in recent years.

In fiscal year 2014, school districts issued $356.5 million in new debt in their operating funds, an increase of $72 million from FY 2013, according to the Illinois State Board of Education.

While annual financial reports for FY 2015 were due on Nov. 15, an official with the board’s public information office said the data won’t be available until February. However, based on revenue and expenditure projections submitted by school districts earlier this year, 62.4 percent of the state’s 859 districts were expected to be deficit spending during the 2015 budget year.

Here are the Top 25 school districts in Illinois that were projected to have the highest amount of deficit spending and surplus spending in 2015, along with each district’s operating expense per pupil and cash reserves as of June 30, 2014.

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