An analysis of the consequences of state administrative and legislative decisions on levels of appropriations for bilingual education in Illinois is presented. The report first describes existing legislation for bilingual education funding in the state, including legislation specifically for transitional bilingual education and other transitional instructional programs. Next, appropriations and political issues in the funding process are examined, including forces promoting competition among school districts. The report proposes a real cost model estimate based on actual program costs to districts and recommends a dollar funding level. Some state statistics concerning eligible and served populations, funding levels for each fiscal year (FY) since FY 1971, requested and actual FY 1988 appropriations, and total excess cost and projected allocations for FYs 1988 and 1989. The report presents separately all statistics for Chicago and downstate and includes a brief bibliography. (MSE)