Plain English Glossary
What Every Term Actually Means

Every Illinois school district must file a detailed financial report with the state every year. It lists every fund, every expenditure category, and every vendor payment above a certain threshold. Think of it as a school's tax return — but it's public, and we can read it.

A type of school borrowing that does not require a public vote. Regular school bonds over certain dollar amounts must be approved by voters in a referendum. Alternate bonds use a legal workaround: they're technically backed by a "revenue stream" rather than the general tax base, which exempts them from the voter approval requirement. In practice, Illinois property taxpayers end up paying them anyway if the revenue stream falls short.

A bond is how schools borrow large amounts of money. The school issues an "IOU" to investors, who lend the school money today in exchange for regular interest payments plus the full amount back over 10–25 years. The money to make those payments comes from property taxes. Illinois school districts collectively owe over $47 billion in bond debt right now.

Every Illinois school district (except Chicago) is governed by 7 elected people called a Board of Education. They are unpaid volunteers who set district policy, approve the budget, hire the superintendent, and vote on contracts. They have enormous legal authority over public money — and almost no day-to-day oversight. Board members serve 4-year terms and are elected in April elections that most people skip.

When a school issues a bond, they hire a law firm called "bond counsel" to handle the legal work — making sure the bond is structured correctly and issuing an "opinion" that makes the bond tax-exempt for investors. Bond counsel firms earn fees of 0.25%–0.5% of the total bond amount. On a $50 million bond, that's $125,000–$250,000 in legal fees. There is no competitive bidding requirement for bond counsel selection in Illinois.

When a school needs to buy something or hire a company for more than $25,000, Illinois law requires them to get competitive bids — multiple companies submit sealed proposals, and the board awards the contract to the best qualified, lowest-price bidder. The point is to prevent the board from just giving contracts to friends and political allies. In practice, many districts find ways around it: splitting contracts under the threshold, using "sole source" exemptions, or ignoring the requirement entirely.

A conflict of interest exists when a school board member has a personal financial stake in a decision they're being asked to make. Classic examples: voting to award a contract to your own company, voting to hire your spouse, voting on an insurance contract with a broker who is also your client, or voting to award a bond to a bank where you work. Illinois law makes it illegal — but enforcement is almost nonexistent unless someone files a complaint.

Money donated to political campaigns or ballot initiative committees in a way that obscures who the original donor is. In Illinois, certain types of political committees can accept donations from other committees, which can accept donations from LLCs, which may be owned by people who don't want their names on public records. The result is a chain of money transfers that makes it legally impossible to identify the original source.

A debt certificate is a way for a school district to borrow money without calling it a "bond" — and without requiring a public vote. It's legally distinct from a bond but works the same way: the district borrows money now and pays it back with interest over time, using property tax revenue. Many districts use debt certificates specifically because they want to avoid the voter approval required for traditional bonds.

A political dynasty is when the same family maintains control over political offices or government bodies across multiple generations. In Illinois school governance, dynasties work like this: a parent sits on a school board for 12 years, helps their child get elected to the same board, and the family builds relationships with vendors and political allies who reward them with business, campaign donations, and job recommendations — creating a self-reinforcing system that outsiders struggle to break into.

EMMA is the public database — run by MSRB (the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board) — where every school bond issued in America is registered and tracked. When an Illinois school district borrows money by issuing a bond, it must disclose the terms, amount, interest rate, and purpose on EMMA. You can search for any Illinois school district at emma.msrb.org and see every bond they've ever issued, plus their annual financial disclosures.

ESSA is the federal law (passed in 2015, replacing No Child Left Behind) that governs public K-12 education. It requires every state to create an accountability system that identifies low-performing schools and districts, requires improvement plans, and — if performance doesn't improve — triggers specific interventions. Illinois must identify the lowest-performing 5% of schools as "Comprehensive Support and Improvement" (CSI) schools.

Normally, school board meetings must be open to the public. An executive session (also called a "closed session") is when the board votes to exclude the public and meet privately. Illinois law allows closed meetings only for specific, listed reasons — like discussing a personnel matter, reviewing litigation strategy, or negotiating a property purchase. Boards that hold closed sessions for reasons not on the legal list, or that make final decisions in closed session, are violating the Open Meetings Act.

When ISBE (the Illinois State Board of Education) determines that a school district's finances are at risk of crisis, it can place the district on the "Financial Watch List." If things get worse, ISBE can escalate to a "Financial Oversight Panel" — which means state-appointed managers effectively take over the district's financial decision-making. East St. Louis SD 189 has been under a Financial Oversight Panel for years. Meridian CUSD 101 is currently on Financial Watch.

FOIA (pronounced "FOY-ah") is Illinois's public records law. It gives every person — citizen, journalist, or just a curious parent — the legal right to request and receive copies of records from any public body, including school districts. You don't need a reason, you don't need a lawyer, and you don't have to explain why you want the records. The district must respond within 5 business days and can only deny your request for specific legal reasons.

Illinois school districts can levy a special local property tax specifically for fire prevention and building safety improvements — fixing broken boilers, upgrading fire alarm systems, improving emergency exits, and similar projects. The money can only be spent on ISBE-approved safety projects. Districts cannot just stockpile the money or use it for other purposes. We found multiple districts holding large FPS fund balances with no approved projects to spend it on.

This is the main way Illinois sends state money to local school districts. The amount each district gets depends on a formula that considers property tax wealth (rich districts get less state money because they can raise more locally), student population, special education costs, English Learner populations, and poverty levels. Illinois switched to "Evidence-Based Funding" (EBF) in 2017 — a new formula designed to be more equitable. But the wealthiest districts still have a massive funding advantage through their local property tax base.

ISBE is the state agency that oversees all Illinois public K-12 education. It sets academic standards, distributes state funding, collects financial reports, maintains school data, and has certain oversight authority over school boards. ISBE is governed by a board appointed by the Governor. It is not a law enforcement agency — it has limited ability to impose sanctions and almost never does so proactively. Most enforcement is complaint-driven.

A Life Safety Bond is a special type of school bond issued specifically to fund fire prevention and safety improvements approved by ISBE. Unlike regular school bonds, Life Safety Bonds don't require a voter referendum — the district can issue them after an ISBE-approved safety inspection identifies deficiencies. They're legitimate when used properly. The red flag is when a district has a large FPS (Fire Prevention and Safety) fund balance but no corresponding Life Safety Bonds on record — suggesting the money might not actually be going to safety projects.

The McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Act is a federal law that guarantees educational rights to homeless children and youth. Every school district must designate a "McKinney-Vento Liaison" — a specific staff member whose job is to identify homeless students, connect them to services, and make sure they can attend school even without a fixed address. The liaison's name and contact information must be publicly posted. We found hundreds of Illinois districts that either don't have a designated liaison or don't post the contact information.

The official written record of everything a school board does at a meeting. Minutes must record: who was present, every motion made, how each member voted, and the outcome. Illinois law requires districts to post approved minutes on their website within 10 days of approval. Minutes are public record — meaning you can request them at any time. Many districts violate this posting requirement, and some have minutes that are so vague they don't actually tell you what the board decided.

Nepotism in school governance means using a board position or administrative authority to benefit family members — hiring a spouse as a teacher, promoting a sibling to a principal position, awarding a maintenance contract to a company owned by your child. It's illegal when it involves a financial conflict of interest (board member voting on a hire they're related to), but it often happens in subtler ways that are harder to prove — like an administrator who isn't officially on the board but has influence over hiring decisions.

A contract awarded to a specific vendor without going through a competitive bidding process. Illinois law requires competitive bids for most school contracts over $25,000. Districts can award no-bid contracts under limited exceptions: emergency situations, "sole source" (only one company can provide the service), or professional services like legal and architectural work. In practice, these exceptions are widely abused — especially the professional services exception, which has been used to award multi-million dollar contracts with no competitive process.

Before an Illinois school board member can vote on anything, they must take a formal oath swearing to faithfully perform their duties and support the Constitution. The oath must be administered by a notary or other authorized official, signed, and filed with the district. It's not optional and it's not just a ceremony — it's a legal prerequisite. Board members who vote before filing their oath are acting without legal authority, and those votes are void.

The Open Meetings Act is one of Illinois's most important transparency laws. It says that government bodies — including school boards — must conduct their business in public. Specific requirements: agendas must be posted at least 48 hours before a meeting (and on the district website), approved minutes must be posted on the website within 10 days of approval, and boards can only close meetings to the public for 23 specific legal reasons. Violations are reported to the Illinois Attorney General's Public Access Counselor.

A PAC is a committee formed specifically to raise and spend money to influence elections. Anyone can form a PAC — companies, unions, individual donors, or political networks. In Illinois, PACs must disclose their donors over $150, file reports with the State Board of Elections, and follow contribution limits. But as our dark money investigation documents, the rules are routinely exploited through layers of committee-to-committee transfers that obscure the original source of the money.

Every Illinois school district that provides transportation must file an annual report with ISBE documenting how many miles their buses traveled, how many students they transported, and what it cost. The state uses this data to calculate transportation reimbursements. We found at least one district (CHSD 230) reporting 513,123 miles — a number that is statistically impossible given the district's geographic footprint and student population. Inflated mileage reporting equals inflated state reimbursements.

A referendum is a public vote. When an Illinois school district wants to borrow large amounts of money through traditional bonds, it must put the question on a ballot and get voter approval. The referendum is the democratic check on school borrowing — it's the moment when taxpayers get to say yes or no to taking on debt that they'll pay back over decades. Many districts use alternate bonds, debt certificates, and other mechanisms specifically to avoid the referendum requirement.

Illinois is divided into 35 regional education districts, each with a Regional Office of Education (ROE) headed by an elected Regional Superintendent of Schools. The ROE is supposed to provide support and oversight to local school districts — monitoring compliance, processing teacher certifications, mediating disputes, and stepping in when a board fails to function properly (like filling a board vacancy the board won't fill itself). ROE superintendents are elected and have significant formal authority that is rarely exercised.

Every Illinois school board member must file an annual Statement of Economic Interests (SEI) with their county clerk. The SEI is a financial disclosure form that lists sources of income, business ownership interests, and positions held in companies. The theory: if a board member has a financial stake in a company doing business with the district, the SEI makes it visible. In practice, the disclosures are often incomplete, the county clerks don't audit them, and nobody cross-references them against vendor payment records — until we did.

TIF is a tool that cities use to finance economic development — and it works by capturing property tax money that would normally go to schools. Here's how: a city creates a TIF district, freezes the property tax base at today's value, and then redirects all future increases in property tax revenue (the "increment") into a TIF fund for development projects in that area. During the TIF period (typically 23 years), schools in that area collect only on the frozen base — even as property values rise. Illinois has $18 billion in school tax base locked in TIF districts statewide.

Title IX is the federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in any school receiving federal funding. Every school district must designate a specific staff member as its "Title IX Coordinator" — the person responsible for receiving and investigating discrimination complaints. The coordinator's name, title, and contact information must be publicly posted. We found hundreds of Illinois districts that either don't have a designated coordinator or don't post the contact information as required by law.

Any outside company or individual that a school district pays for goods or services. School districts hire vendors for everything: food service, transportation, construction, technology, legal advice, insurance, landscaping, cleaning, and hundreds of other services. Vendor payments are public record — they appear in the district's Annual Financial Report. We analyzed $104.9 billion in Illinois school vendor payments from 2020–2024 to find anomalies, concentration patterns, and political connections.

A working cash bond is a type of short-term school borrowing that does not require a voter referendum. It's supposed to help districts manage cash flow — bridging the gap between when expenses are due and when tax revenue arrives. However, working cash bonds are frequently used as a long-term financing mechanism, effectively allowing districts to borrow money without public approval by rolling the bonds repeatedly.