Appointed in 1978, the New York State Special Task Force on Equity and Excellence in Education was charged with improving educational equity in the state. This volume of the report first presents seven alternative school finance plans developed by the task force to demonstrate how its recommendations could be implemented. The report notes each plan's characteristics regarding minimum state aid guarantees, pupil count, student needs, school district fiscal capacity, equity effects, and special features. It also presents recommendations and task force members' statements on the plans' costs and implementation. The volume also contains task force research results and proposals on state aid programs affecting transportation, building, and cooperative provision of educational services. Suggestions about how to help city school districts with constitutional tax limits are also outlined, as are the results of a study of the use of income taxes as "circuit breakers" to reduce unfair property tax burdens. Appendices provide a proposed state aid adjustment formula based on municipal overburden, plus cost-of-living indices for New York State's counties. (Author/RW)