Illinois: SPED transportation costs up 75% over five years

Oct 1, 2026,  Why school transportation is getting so much more expensive for Illinois schools - IPM Newsroom

The Freeport School District eliminated one of their bus routes this year. The district’s transportation director Dallas Pieper says it used to take around 60 kids to school every day.

“It was due to the budget,” she said, “We just couldn’t afford it.”

Freeport’s transportation budget has been cut nearly 40% over the past two years. At the same time, costs keep going up, so something had to give.

“Trying to figure out how we can make that money last with the smallest amount of impact,” said Pieper, “but knowing we’re going to have to impact people. That has really been a stressor these last couple weeks and I’m sure it will be a stressor for the next couple years.”

The cost of school transportation

School transportation costs in Illinois went up 60% over the past five fiscal years of available state data. Last year, Illinois schools spent over $1.8 billion on it.

Emily Warnecke says, prior to the pandemic, school transportation costs would increase around 2% every year. Over the past few years, however, yearly increases have jumped to 12-13%. . . .

State transportation funding is split into two sections: what the state calls “regular transportation” — the big yellow school buses — and “special education transportation” —think vans picking up students who use wheelchairs.

Armir Doka is director of business and finance at the DeKalb School District.

“Special education transportation costs,” he said, “are actually the ones that have increased way more than the regular ones.”

That’s true. Statewide, special education transportation costs are up 75% in that same five-year timespan.

“You’re not putting 60 kids on a [special education] bus,” said Warnecke. “In some cases you’re just putting one, maybe two students on because they’re being sent to a private facility or they have very specialized services they need or an aide on the bus.”

But, overall, Warnecke says the state is still trying to figure out why these costs have increased so much, and if the situation is similar for other states. . . .