The State Higher Education Finance (SHEF) report is produced annually by the State Higher Education Executive Officers (SHEEO) to broaden understanding of the context and consequences of multiple decisions made every year in each of these areas. No single report can provide definitive answers to such broad and fundamental questions of public…

The new Federal revenue sharing proposal has been received with diverse reactions by politicians, economists, and citizens. The program is divided into $5 billion annually in general revenue sharing and $11 billion annually in special revenue sharing. Proposed alternatives to revenue sharing include (1) reduction of Federal taxes, thereby…

This report describes and evaluates the North Dakota state/local fiscal system, especially as it relates to financing public education. It identifies and evaluates various fiscal policy options for raising additional tax revenue for support of schools and other public services in ways consistent with the basic characteristics of the North Dakota…

This paper presents an overview of Florida's fiscal status and the state of its educational fiscal reform. Five areas of concern are identified regarding educational finance--adequacy of funding, educational reform initiatives including accountability, equity, alternative tax sources, and communication. These issues indicate a highly unstable…

This paper describes current school-funding policy issues in Washington State. The first part examines how Initiative 601, an initiative aimed at curbing state taxes and spending, will create fiscal instability for school districts. Difficulties include an expected growth in school enrollment exceeding population growth, an expected growth of…

In 1988, 66 of Tennessee's rural school districts brought suit against the state government claiming that the school funding system of a local option sales tax discriminates against rural areas. This study examines the effects of increased reliance on local sales tax revenue on Tennessee's school expenditures. Not every county can support a major…

This paper describes a project designed to provide educational decisionmakers with projections of and forecasts about future metropolitan conditions and problems, and information about the implications of alternative ways of solving metropolitan problems. Project components included (1) population and economic projections and forecasts, (2)…

This document reports the results of the National Capital Outlay Project, the purposes of which were (1) to investigate the legal basis, procedures, and practices utilized by the 50 States in providing funds for public school construction and related debt service; and (2) to generate a series of capital outlay finance models that States could use…

This report provides an analysis of current inequities in school finance in Illinois, the historical roots of those inequities, and an analysis of alternative options for funding primary and secondary education. An introduction briefly describes the basis for the constitutional challenge to the current funding system. The next section describes…

A growing interest in the use of nonproperty sources to replace an overburdened property tax, actually or psychologically, has been evident in recent years, particularly as school district levies have been running into stiff voter opposition. However, because school districts have relied on the property tax for their major and often sole source of…