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Chapter 9: Schools falling further into debt

Illinois schools spend a lot of money every month.

They're also spending a lot of tomorrow's dollars today.

Illinois schools owed a total of $16 billion in bond loans at the end of the 2005-06 year.

That's $8,555 of long-term debt for each student in the state.

At the end of the 1996-97 school year, Illinois schools only owed $6.6 billion.

That was $3,728 per kid in the system.

The debt rose 144 percent over the 10-year period.

SCHOOL FINANCE 101Chapter 9Bond debt
Here is the total amount of revenue area school districts collected in 2005-06, the total amount of bond debt for each district, their enrollment and how much the bond debt equals on a per-student basis. View reportAlso available is a downloadable list with expanded information, including 1998-99 data (the earliest year electronically available), ADA (average daily attendance) for both years, plus bond debt as a percent of 2005-06 total revenue.
[XLS document]Chapter 8

Feeder and unit districts

The Daily Herald combined 2005-06 statistics for area high schools and their feeder elementary districts. These are presented here next to unit districts (single K-12 districts) for comparison. After each high school district are its feeder districts in parentheses. We then list the total revenue for each unit and combined high school/feeder district, the number of students, total revenue per student, the amount of revenue from local sources (mostly property taxes and school fees), the administrative expenditures per student, superintendent compensation (excluding health insurance costs) and superintendent compensation per student. View report

Also available is a downloadable Excel file with the same information
[XLS document]

Chapter 7

Super pay for superintendents

Here are the 2005-06 pay packages for area school superintendents, listing salary; bonuses (also includes all annuities, stipends, payments for unused sick and vacation days, and car allowance); pension costs (includes all payments by district to health pension and retirement pension plans); total pay package (does not include health, dental, life or disability insurance costs); years as superintendent in district; total years as a superintendent; ADA (district's average daily attendance); and number of schools in district. Note: * means district did not respond to survey; pay figure obtained from state report. View report

Also available is a downloadable Excel file with the same information
[XLS document]

Chapter 6

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