With scant resources but boundless commitment, Charles Johnson, superintendent in a rural Mississippi district, takes pride in stretching school funds. The district has never run a deficit or borrowed to make ends meet. (MLF)

The system that finances Michigan's schools from kindergarten through 12th grade is a perennial topic of conversation among policymakers, parents, taxpayers and voters. A constructive discussion of this issue, however, requires a sound knowledge of the financial workings of Michigan's elementary and secondary school system. This knowledge is…

New York State's School Tax Relief Aid (STAR) heavily favors wealthier districts, partially reversing equalizing effects that state aid is designed to have. Normally state school aid helps bring less wealthy school districts closer to the standard of wealthier districts. It increases and makes up the lost revenue from taxpayers in the state as a…

To identify 5-year trends in revenues and expenditures for Pennsylvania's 500 school districts and to show how fiscal trends interact with changes in variables such as student enrollment, statewide school financial data from 1984-85 through 1988-89 are analyzed. The figures indicated that financial trends include increases in total district…

One principal set of obstacles preventing public education from having shown more progress in realizing the national objective of equal educational opportunity has to do with the way schools are financed. Resolving problems of school finance is, U.S. Commissioner of Education Allen says, an absolute essential in achieving equal opportunity. Some…

This study documents the revenue and expenditure patterns for categories of school districts and for individual school districts. The fiscal impact of the current system, the nature and extent of fiscal disparities, and the factors that contribute to the disparities are examined. An attempt is made to distinguish between disparities among…

In 1996, the Mississippi State Department of Education published information on accreditation, finances, student achievement, and other variables that could be utilized to assess each school district's success. After the report's publication, questions surfaced regarding disparities in the funding of the public school districts in the state. An…

To increase the reliability of forecasting school district income and expenditures, school business managers should clarify the purpose and time frame of the forecast; be sure the basic data are accurate; specify the assumptions; be consistent in calculation; examine data critically; and recognize that forecasting requires insight and intuition.…

States are ranked on 117 items of data that may be used to understand, explain, interpret, and evaluate various aspects of State school systems. The general categories of the listings are (1) population, (2) enrollment and attendance, (3) teachers, (4) educational attainment, (5) financial resources, (6) governmental and school revenues, (7)…

This compendium describes the programs of state financial aid to school districts that were in effect in the 1978-79 school year. The introductory section of the report is an analysis of the situation and contains summary tables. The report for each state consists of two parts. The first part reports features of the state and local systems of…

This publication offers interested citizens of California a brief analysis of the problems the State faces in financing its public school system, a brief presentation of general financing alternatives, and a look at legislative measures which have been proposed or are being proposed to implement these alternatives. The research that produced these…

This publication describes state funds transmitted to local agencies for the support of elementary and secondary education. Each distribution identified as a separate fund by the state is described in terms of (1) title, (2) legal citation, (3) appropriation for the school year or estimate, (4) percentage of total state funds transmitted, (5)…

States are ranked on 129 items of data that may be used to understand, explain, interpret, and evaluate various aspects of State school systems. The general categories of the listings are (1) population, (2) enrollment and attendance, (3) teachers, (4) educational attainment, (5) financial resources, (6) governmental revenue, (7) school revenue,…

School districts can improve their chances of avoiding financial difficulty by developing unreserved fund balance resources specifically for contingencies. Offers guidelines for establishing such a fund. (MLF)

This publication describes State funds transmitted to local agencies for the support of elementary and secondary education. Each distribution identified as a separate fund by the State is described in terms of (1) title, (2) legal citation, (3) appropriation for the school year or estimate, (4) percentage of total State funds transmitted, (5)…