Examines Michigan's attempt to abolish the school property tax and implications for New York State policymakers. Michigan substantially reduced the local property tax for local school operations, adopted a permanent set of tax and revenue limits, and devised a problematic assessment cap. Totally eliminating the local school property tax may be…

Summarizes arguments for and against replacing the local school property tax by a local school income tax. Explores the empirical effects of such policies for New York State. Using a 3% income tax and refashioning state aid to a foundation level of $8,068 per pupil would not require substantial new state revenues. (38 footnotes) (MLH)

Simulates effects of regional, nonresidential, expanded tax-base (ETB) school-finance approaches on measures of student and taxpayer equity for New York State. ETB plans are regressive, as they fail to decrease the variation in tax burden across districts, allowing high-wealth districts lower relative tax burdens. (23 references) (MLH)

The partial financing of New York State's public schools with a state-mandated tax coupled with state aid based upon county or regional wealth rather than local district wealth would provide greater equalization of both revenues and expenditures of school districts than does the present law. A comparable increase in state aid appropriations under…

The property tax is the single most important revenue source for local governments and school districts in New York State. Its positive attributes are its stability, simplicity, efficiency, predictability, and its contribution to local government. Yet gross inequities are associated with assessment administration of property tax. An analysis of a…

This report measures the inequities in school taxes on New York State residential property that result from assessment nonuniformity. The index of nonuniformity is a measure of the average percentage difference in school tax bills paid by owners of like residential properties in the same school district but in separate assessing units. Using this…

This document contains eight articles that offer a nonpartisan evaluation of the pros and cons associated with tax reforms. They were written by members of the Technical Study Group, which was established by the New York State Department of Education in 1994 to examine the generation of revenue for public education. The work of the study group…

Evaluates estimates of full-value-equalization rates, using a study of 20 New York cities and their school districts to (1) show that these estimates contain significant errors, (2) discuss how these errors affect intergovernmental relations, and (3) analyze how they affect equity in financing local schools. (MCG)

This article examines a method of determining school aid, potential sources of abrupt changes arising from revaluation, an illustrative case, and policy options. It finds many problems caused by jurisdictional fragmentation and time lags inherent in the equalization process. Tables include full-value determinations and school district property…

Discusses alternative sources for school funding to replace the traditional heavy reliance on local property taxes and addresses the problem of financial inequity between school districts. Proposes complete state financing of all school districts and an increased state income tax as possible alternatives to local property tax-based school funding.…

This paper attempts both to provide a way of looking at school finance in order to make wiser decisions about it and to discuss some alternative ways to finance the public schools of New York State. The New York school finance system is examined in terms of equity, efficiency, and responsiveness, as are some of the characteristics of the…

To explore the issue of school finance reform, a series of community forums held across the state were carried out, the results of which are presented. The paper provides some major findings: a basic school finance system already exists, namely, property taxes supplemented by equalized state aid; the magnitude of the school property tax means…

This report is a response to the Governor's Executive Budget for Fiscal Year 2003-04 for the state of New York. The report begins with an introduction, which attacks the budget, particularly in light of "NCLB schools and districts" (NCLB schools and districts are those designated by the New York State Education Department [NYSED] in need…