Nebraska’s public-school districts received $83,298,223.05 from the state’s Temporary School Fund for the 2025-26 apportionment, an allocation equal to $217.69 for each school-age child counted statewide.
The Nebraska Department of Education’s payment notice says the calculation used a 2025 census of 382,652 children ages 5 through 18. Every district receives a share, and the money is recorded in district general funds as state apportionment. That makes the payment broad-based rather than a competitive grant or an appropriation targeted to selected schools.
The distribution comes from a public trust structure that predates statehood. The Board of Educational Lands and Funds manages land granted for education and sends net income into the Temporary School Fund. Its current board summary reports that approximately $83.298 million was distributed for K-12 education during 2026 and says the figure excludes county real-estate taxes paid on trust property, most of which also support local schools.
Under state law, the treasurer certifies money in the permanent and temporary school funds each year. The education commissioner then apportions the available balance, first accounting for payments tied to public-use school or saline lands and then dividing the remainder according to the census of children ages 5 through 18. A companion statute reserves the entire Temporary School Fund for the support and maintenance of public schools.
The trust’s scale helps explain why the annual payment is meaningful even though it is only one component of Nebraska school finance. BELF’s latest annual report valued the combined land and permanent-fund portfolio at $3.047 billion on June 30, 2025. Agricultural land represented $1.897 billion, or 62.3%, while stocks and bonds managed by the Nebraska Investment Council accounted for $1.150 billion, or 37.7%.
The same report shows how lease income and invested assets work together. For fiscal 2024-25, agricultural rent and interest produced $54.7 million, while interest and dividends on permanent investments contributed nearly $41.0 million. The report listed total K-12 school-trust revenue of $158.0 million, a broader measure than the annual district apportionment because it includes deposits and additions governed by different trust rules.
For districts, the practical number is the $217.69 per-child payment. Because the formula follows the statewide census rather than enrollment in a particular program, a district’s share rises or falls with its count of resident children. The mechanism also separates this revenue from Nebraska’s larger equalization-aid formula and from locally raised property taxes.
That distinction matters for local budgeting: the payment is unrestricted general-fund revenue, but it is determined centrally and arrives as a fixed annual allocation. Districts cannot increase the statewide pool through a local levy.
The 2026 allocation therefore represents a recurring return from assets held for public education, not a drawdown of the trust’s principal. The permanent fund remains invested, while eligible earnings and school-land income move through the temporary fund for annual distribution.
