East Aurora School District 131 — District Behind Approved Budget
East Aurora School District 131’s school board has signed off on a $272.4 million budget for the 2026-27 school year that plans for about $6.8 million more in expenses than revenue, a deficit that follows a balanced budget just one year earlier. The board’s vote locks in spending nearly $10 million higher than the previous year, even as the district’s enrollment continues to shrink and its share of new state aid gets squeezed.
The 2026-27 fiscal year, which runs from July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2027, projects $272.4 million in expenses against $265.6 million in expected revenue, according to the Chicago Tribune. That marks a sharp reversal from the district’s 2025-26 fiscal year, when it operated on a balanced budget of roughly $263 million in projected expenses against $263.3 million in expected revenue. State funding accounts for about two-thirds of District 131’s total projected revenue, with the rest coming from local and federal sources, per the same report…