By: Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner

Too many Illinoisans have yet to connect the dots between their outrageous property taxes – the highest in the country – and the huge amount of money Illinois politicians keep pouring into K-12 education, now at $24,000 per student and highest in the Midwest. Education spending typically makes up anywhere from 50% to 70% of an Illinoisan’s property tax bill, so keeping a close eye on education spending matters.

Take a look at how fast education spending has gone up in the last 25 years. In 2000, the state spent $16.2 billion overall, including all state, local and federal dollars and covering everything from classrooms to pensions and debt. If that spending had grown at the pace of inflation, today the total K-12 spend in Illinois would be $29.5 billion.

But the actual number is far higher. It’s jumped to $43.9 billion. That’s a whopping $14.5 billion more in education spending in 2024 alone. 

K-12 spending has increased by 172% since 2000, while inflation is up just 82%. For sure a big chunk of that spending increase has been the spike in pension costs for teachers and staff – some of the biggest pensions in the country – but much of it has come from a big jump in bureaucracy too, as we detail later.

That $14.5 billion is the equivalent of about 40% of all Illinois property taxes, both residential and commercial. So you can imagine what kind of property relief we could see in Illinois today if we made education spending more efficient and more affordable.