How much federal funding does your metro-east school get and what’s it used for?
As President Donald Trump advances his plan to close the U.S. Department of Education, many questions remain about the future of the federal funds the department has traditionally overseen.
That means the impact closing the department and the related shakeups’ impact on students is also uncertain.
But, we do know how much federal funding metro-east school districts projected they would receive this fiscal year when crafting their budgets, and what they plan to use it for.
With three months left in the fiscal year, some of this money may already be in districts’ hands. Federal reimbursements for other expenses may come later.
No two districts’ plans are exactly the same.
Districts may braid different federal funding streams together to finance programs and initiatives, so long as each source is being used for its stipulated purposes, said Dustin Bilbruck, Belleville High School Township District 201’s assistant superintendent of finance and operations.
“One of the things that’s important to note is that every school might utilize (federal funds) a little bit differently, depending on their specific needs,” Bilbruck said.
Types of federal school funding
While most of Illinois school districts’ revenues come from state and local taxes, the comparatively small percentage they receive from the federal government is critical, educators say.
Below are some examples of federal funds local districts may receive, according to information from local administrators, the Illinois State Board of Education’s website and other education websites.
Title I funding supports academic and instructional initiatives for schools that serve low-income students.
Title II hones in on strengthening academic achievement through teacher preparation, namely professional development.
Title III is to support English Language Learners, and can be used for programs and activities to help educators best serve these students.
Title IV’s purposes are broad, but in general, these grants take a comprehensive approach to boosting academic outcomes. Uses can include family engagement, after school programs, technology, and charter and magnet schools, to name a few.
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) funds are specifically for programs, services and initiatives for students with disabilities. IDEA funding is administered by the Department of Education, which then flows through the states to districts.
The National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs are run by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and partially reimburse schools for meals served to children participating in the program.
Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Funds (ESSER) aim to mitigate the impacts of the pandemic on learning. The Department of Education rolled out ESSER in three phases, and it also flowed through the states. Some districts have ESSER III funds in their current budgets, while others have already spent their ESSER monies.
The Impact Aid Program, which is also under the Department of Education’s purview, funnels money to districts that serve children who live on tax-exempt federal property. This helps make up for these districts’ limited local revenue sources. It may also assist districts that serve children with parents in the U.S. Armed Forces or who work, but do not live, on federal property. Unlike most other federal funding programs for schools, Impact Aid goes directly to the districts without state involvement.
Below is how much and what types of federal revenue select Belleville and metro-east school districts included in their Fiscal Year 2025 budgets.
Belleville School District 118
Approximate total projected revenue: $60.4 million
Approximate projected federal revenue: $6.5 million (11%)
Examples of what federal funds are used for: IDEA and Title are notable federal revenue streams in District 118’s budget, Superintendent Ryan Boike said.
Belleville 118 uses federal funding for a variety of purposes, Boike said, including staff like paraprofessionals and instructional coaches, curricular resources, social-emotional learning resources, special education curriculum and instructional resources, technology, benchmark assessment materials and staff professional development.
Belleville Township High School District 201
Approximate total projected revenue: $91.6 million
Approximate projected federal revenue: $5.6 million (6%)
Examples of what federal funds are used for: Superintendent Brian Mentzer explained this fiscal year’s budgeted revenues include some expenses that aren’t typical from year-to-year. Of the district’s federal funding, the district expects the main streams to be Title, IDEA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National School Lunch and School Breakfast Program, Mentzer said.
In District 201, Title I is the largest type of its Title funds. Mentzer said some of this goes towards salaries for positions that are aligned with the funding sources’ goals, instructional technology among other expenditures. Similarly, IDEA is used for a variety of things, like funding personnel, therapeutic services and program costs.
Belle Valley School District 119
Approximate total projected revenue: $17.9 million
Approximate projected federal revenue: $1.7 million (9%)
Examples of what federal funds are used for: When the two are combined, the USDA’s National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs ($594,000 total) are projected to be Belle Valley’s largest federal revenue source, followed by Title I ($406,800) and then IDEA ( $315,400).
Business Manager Margot Holt said Title I funding is used for technology equipment and materials, instructional salaries and benefits, student assessment activities and more. IDEA, Holt said, is also used for salaries and benefits and services from Belleville Area Special Services Cooperative – both of which support students with disabilities.
The district has roughly $200,000 in ESSER III funds in its budget, which Holt said it’s using for salaries and benefits for regular, after-school and summer school programs, as well as transportation for after-school and summer school programs.
Harmony-Emge School District 175
Approximate total projected revenue: $15.2 million
Approximate projected federal revenue: $1.2 million (8%)
Examples of what federal funds are used for: The district’s largest projected federal revenue streams are Title I ($281,000) and IDEA ($237,870), Superintendent Dustin Nail said.
He said the district uses the majority of its Title I funding for salaries related to its multi-tiered intervention system for students struggling with reading or math. Their IDEA money is put towards their partnership with the Belleville Area Special Services Cooperative and to non-certified staff in their special education department.
Whiteside School District 115
Approximate total projected revenue: $18 million
Approximate projected federal revenue: $2.4 million (13%)
Examples of what federal funds are used for: This fiscal year, the Whiteside used approximately $1.1 million in ESSER funding for a heating, ventilation and air conditioning project, which can help stop the spread of disease, Superintendent Mark Heuring said.
As for the district’s regularly-funded federal revenue streams, it anticipates the USDA’s National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs ($534,000 combined), Title I ($351,000) and IDEA ($290,075) to be some of the largest.
Heuring said the district uses a large portion of its federal funds to compensate over 20 paraprofessionals for students with disabilities as well as students in need of additional academic support to prevent failing. IDEA also helps pay for therapy services for students with special needs, professional development and more.
Wolf Branch School District 113
Approximate total projected revenue: $12 million
Approximate projected federal revenue: $412,393 (3%)
Examples of what federal funds are used for: The district anticipates its largest federal funding streams for this fiscal year to be IDEA ($170,548), the USDA National School Lunch Program ($100,000) and Title funds, specifically Title I ($82,735), Superintendent Nicole Sanderson said.
The district’s IDEA, Title I and Title II revenue sources are particularly important because they all help pay personnel and for intervention services, Sanderson said. Title II, which focuses on teacher quality, makes it so teachers can access training on meeting the needs of students specified in IDEA and Title I funding sources, she said.
IDEA also helps Wolf Branch reduce class sizes, buy intervention-based instructional programs, and obtain supplies to build sensory spaces – areas in which individuals can better control their sensory input and therefore can be useful for self regulation – and support students with disabilities in other ways, Sanderson explained.
East St. Louis School District 189
Approximate total projected revenue: $130.6 million
Approximate projected federal revenue: 27% ($35.8 million)
Examples of what federal funds are used for: District 189 had $19.2 million of ESSER III funding in its current budget, which was to be used for heating, ventilation and air conditioning projects in all 10 of its schools. Per a previously approved extension, they had until March 2026 to spend these funds, but a recent revocation of that extension has put those funds in jeopardy.
Title I ($6.8 million) IDEA ($2.5 million) and the USDA National School Lunch Program ($100,000) are some of the district’s top projected federal revenue sources.
The federal funding goes to a broad swath of expenditures, the district’s executive director of communications and strategic partnerships Sydney Stigge-Kaufman said. These include supplemental funding for general education and students with disabilities, staff salaries and benefits, after school and summer school programs and instructional supplies and materials.
High Mount School District 116
Approximate total projected revenue: $6 million
Approximate projected federal revenue: $456,002 (8%)
Examples of what federal funds are used for: The USDA’s National School Lunch and National School Breakfast Programs make up $185,600 of the district’s projected revenue. Other large federal funding streams, said Superintendent Beth Horner, are expected to be Title I ($117,777) and IDEA ($104,727).
High Mount’s Title I funds help pay for a reading teacher and intervention paraprofessionals, as well as transportation for unhoused students and more, Horner said. IDEA funding includes expenditures like special education paraprofessionals’ compensation, curriculum materials and professional development, she said.
Collinsville Community Unit School District 10
Approximate total projected revenue: $100.4 million
Approximate projected federal revenue: $12.4 million (12%)
Examples of what federal funds are used for: Superintendent Brad Skertich said the district’s largest anticipated federal funding streams are Title and the USDA’s National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs.
Most of its projected Title funding is Title I (roughly $1.5 million), which it primarily uses for research-based interventions and progress monitoring, including the pay and benefits of associated certified and non-certified staff, Skertich explained. The district also estimated it will receive about $1.7 million in IDEA funding, which is primarily used to pay extra support staff for students with disabilities, Skertich said.
Mascoutah School District 19
Approximate total projected revenue: $72.6 million
Approximate projected federal revenue: 29% $20.9 million (29%)
Examples of what federal funds are used for: An overwhelming majority of the district’s federal funding is Impact Aid — they’re projecting $16.7 million in this year’s budget, Superintendent David Deets said. Roughly half of the district’s students are connected to the military. Scott Elementary School on base is part of District 19 and many other military-connected students reside within the district.
Otherwise, the other main projected federal revenue streams are Title — namely Title I ($260,000) — and IDEA ($850,000). Deets said these funds are used for salaries and benefits, to purchase curriculum resources, intervention programs and assessment programs, with IDEA funds specific to services for students with disabilities.
O’Fallon School District 90
Approximate total projected revenue: $51.6 million
Approximate projected federal revenue: 6% ($3.3 million)
Examples of what federal funds are used for: IDEA is the district’s largest anticipated federal revenue stream at $888,000, followed by the USDA National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs ($800,000) and then the federal Impact Aid Program ($600,000), Superintendent Carrie Hruby said. IDEA is used for curricular materials, supplemental materials, services, equipment and technology and more for students with Individualized Education Plans.
Title funds are also a large federal funding stream for the district, in particular Title I ($415,000) and Title II ($79,000).
One use of their Title I grants is paying a reading specialist who works with children in addition to the reading instruction they get in the classroom. District 90 uses Title II funds for a variety of training, bringing in specialists, mentor programs and other professional development initiatives.
The district also has approximately $325,000 of ESSER III funds in its budget, which were primarily used for Chromebooks and math textbooks, Hruby said, adding this funding was spent in the fall.
Central School District 104
Approximate total projected revenue: $11.9 million
Approximate projected federal revenue: $1.4 million (12%)
Examples of what federal funds are used for: In this year’s budget, the district included over $246,000 in ESSER funds that it has since received. Other big federal revenue sources the district projected include Title I ($397,573), the USDA National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs ($328,000) and IDEA ($242,862).
Like the other O’Fallon school districts, Central School District receives some Impact Aid. The district estimated they will receive almost $16,000 from this funding source for this school year.
Superintendent Gabrielle Rodriguez said District 104 uses federal funding for a variety of expenditures — behavioral consulting, services for unhoused students, professional development, to name a few. Unlike many other area districts, District 104 doesn’t pay salaries with federal grants, to ensure that jobs will not need to be cut if the grants change and to bypass federal interest rates.
The district was also awarded a $350,000 violence prevention grant from the Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, which they’ve used for security cameras, door fob systems and more, Rodriguez said. At the time the budget was made, the work timeline was undetermined, and so this grant is not seen in the current fiscal year’s budget.
O’Fallon Township High School District 203
Approximate total projected revenue: $45.5 million
Approximate projected federal revenue: $2.3 million (5%)
Examples of what federal funds are used for: OTHS District 203’s top anticipated federal revenue streams include IDEA ($567,239), the USDA’s National School Lunch Program ($345,000; but the district gets another $28,000 for the breakfast program), Impact Aid ($275,000) and Title I ($214,627), Superintendent Beth Shackelford said.
The district uses IDEA for salaries and benefits for some special education staff, behavior management and summer programming, professional development, progress monitoring and more, Shackelford said. Title I supports students who need additional academic support through smaller class sizes, library services, transportation for students without homes, student health services and more.
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