SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Today the Illinois General Assembly approved a K-12 education budget without enacting permanent reform to the inequitable funding formula:

While not a perfect plan, today’s measure will allow every school in Illinois to open on time in the fall, will bridge funding to the charitable agencies that serve Illinois’ most vulnerable citizens, and will freeze lawmaker pay.”

K-12 education will be funded in FY17 at the highest level in our state’s history, and for the first time in seven years, the funding formula will not be prorated.

While today’s action will ensure that schools can open without disruption in the fall, it also marks the creation of a new equity grant for schools is evidence of bi-partisan support for future structural reform to the current system.

Currently Illinois still has the most regressive system of school funding in the country and until they address that truth, and fix the formula, their work isn’t done.

Lawmakers warn that taxpayer dollars will continue to be spent to promote inequity until permanent reforms are implemented that guide state funding to schools based on student need.