When wading into the murky waters of how Illinois funds essential operations, it’s common to only be ankle deep before wondering if the confusion is intentional.

Tuesday’s column referenced a Capitol News Illinois report showing the State Board of Education has tallied new funding requests approaching $750 million. It’s worth reading the entire story (tinyurl.com/k12FundingAsk), but the highlights illustrate the difficulty in understanding all the moving parts.

First off, the evidence-based funding formula dictates each year’s budget adds at least $350 million. That money is supposed to go to the state’s most underfunded districts and relieve property tax burdens in high-rate districts. But those allocations don’t include “mandated categorical programs,” or MCATs, like transportation, meals and special education “typically shared on a prorated scale between the state and local districts,” according to CNI’s Peter Hancock, adding current requests “included a $100 million increase in state funding for those costs.”

Other considerations are $30 million to hire more special education teachers, another $30 million for multilingual education and a $60 million boost for early childhood block grants. ISBE also has a new literacy plan, approved in 2024, and wants $68.5 million for implementation.

Unspecified in the story is the ongoing underfunding of the School Construction Grant program, which the General Assembly enacted in 1997, “largely to address the shortage of classroom space due to population growth or aging buildings,” according to the State Board of Education, which administers SGCP with the Capital Development Board. After paying more than $3.1 billion to 497 districts through fiscal 2003, dozens of districts have submitted projects meeting funding criteria but lawmakers haven’t set aside money.

The fiscal 2026 budget does include $40 million to build a multi-sport complex at Proviso West High School in Hillside, the alma mater of House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, who also served on the school board before his legislative career. Republicans blasted him for the allocation in June and will certainly issue another round of statements after his Nov. 20 appearance at a public planning session where he said he’s “make no apologies about” the earmark.

His logic is rooted in economic projections that might increase public revenue, “which allows the school district to do some other things and maybe not raise property taxes,” according to The Forest Park Review. Setting aside distrust of such estimates, whether for youth sports or an NFL arena, and we’re still deciphering a situation where money going into “the schools” is siloed in a way that obfuscates who funds which part of the overall outlay.

I generally favor any spending on teachers, students and facilities, but it’s hard to argue for extra allocations given the difficulty of verifying the current billions are efficiently administered.

• Scott T. Holland writes about state government issues for Shaw Local News Network. He can be reached at sholland@shawmedia.com.