Why Local Property Taxes are Inappropriate for Financing Illinois Community Colleges: A Strategy for Challenging How the State Funds these Post-Secondary Schools

Abstract

Illinois relies on property taxes for much of the money needed to support its elementary and secondary schools. Wide variations in property values lead to considerable differences in what each school district spends per student. On several occasions reformers have unsuccessfully tried to change these funding arrangements. Still the reformers persist. This study suggests that efforts to reorganize grade and high school funding should now include community college financing. Community colleges also receive a large and growing portion of their monies from property taxes. Not surprisingly, this arrangement leads to wide per student spending disparities among community college jurisdictions. This paper proposes that because of political obstacles erected by various judicial precedents, eliminating wide spending differences among both community college and elementary/secondary school districts will most likely derive, ironically, from court rulings, rather than actions by the legislature. This study proposes strategies for having courts grant the desired relief for community colleges.