Beginning in 1978, Illinois school districts were required to contribute to unemployment insurance (UI) payments to their former employees. Districts could pay these costs either by reimbursing the state for actual benefits paid (and, in 1978, being in their turn largely reimbursed by federal and state aid) or by paying an annual 1-percent tax on each district employee's first $6,000 of earnings. To determine how much districts actually paid in UI in 1978, what factors districts should consider in choosing their method of payment, and whether the tax method was adequate, data were gathered from the state's Office of Education and Bureau of Employment Security and from 242 respondents to a questionnaire survey of 350 Illinois district superintendents. Variables covered for each district included size, type, location, UI costs per employee, enrollment trends, county unemployment rate, use of UI service bureaus, contracting for major support services, and method of UI payment. T-tests and analysis of variance indicate that reimbursement was significantly cheaper than the tax method, that none of the district variables was related to payment method, and that the 1-percent tax rate easily covered UI costs. (Author/RW)