Examines voter response to bond issues immediately following Michigan's elimination of its property tax school-funding system. Reviews equity measures, discusses court cases addressing school-facility equity issues, and compares other states' funding approaches. Michigan's system for financing school facilities remains inequitable, and facility…

Reflecting widespread unhappiness with the growing tax burdens in this country, the most active area of litigation reported in the property chapter this year involves various attempts by taxpayers to prevent the construction or remodeling of public school facilities. While some taxpayers fought to keep schools from being built, others in New York…

Chapter 7 of a book on school law, this chapter deals with 1979 cases involving disputes over property. Cases involving taxpayer attempts to prevent the construction of school buildings dominate this year's property chapter, as they did last year's. Yet, paradoxically, there is also a significant increase in cases in which taxpayers tried to…

Numerous cases in this year's chapter dealt with the same topics of previous years--contracts and bids for building construction, and detachment and annexation of a portion of a school district. The courts continued to attribute board discretionary authority to school boards in school property matters. Intergovernmental disputes over ownership or…

The United States Supreme Court has made it clear that Congress can tax state bonds. All public purpose bonds issued by school districts must be issued in a registered format in order to continue their tax-exempt status. (MLF)

Several state courts have ruled that public money may be used to inform the voters about a school bond referendum and the project to be financed with bond proceeds, but may not be used to promote passage of the referendum. (MLF)

While the number of cases dealing with school property issues was significantly lower than in previous years, a significant number of cases involving the detachment and attachment of land to school districts arose. Eight of the eleven cases dealing with land detachment come from Illinois. The cases concerned requests from parents that their…

While the types of cases reported in this year's chapter are essentially the same as those reported in last year's, the number of certain types of cases have changed--in some instances significantly. For example, the number of cases raising constitutional issues in the areas of school construction, location, and property use have declined. On the…