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State Board Weighs Change to Transportation Funding

The Illinois State Board of Education is getting feedback on a possible change to the way it calculates reimbursements to districts.

Districts are supposed to be paid the actual costs of busing students to and from school.

Monmouth-Roseville Superintendent Paul Woehlke said that would change if the ISBE has its way.

He said, “There would be a formula that would be applied to determine the amount of transportation funding to be sent to each district based on whichever works out better for the district either on a per transported student basis or per transportation mile basis.”

Woehlke said the ISBE wants to encourage districts to cut costs. The irony, he said, is the state's failure to fully fund transportation has already forced districts to drastically cut their costs. 

He said the proposal is not as radical as the governor's suggestion the state stop paying for school  transportation altogether.

Woehlke said, “That would be a drastic shift of burden to downstate districts.”