This book provides a nontechnical analysis of state and local finances that is intended to provide educators, lawmakers, students, and voters with the background necessary to form intelligent opinions and make effective decisions. The authors summarize current theories of the incidence of the major state and local taxes, assess the capacity of…

Part of the monthly Saturday Review supplement, "Education in America," sponsored by the Charles F. Kettering Foundation.

The purpose of the annual National Association of College and University Business Officers' (NACUBO) Comparative Performance Study is to aid administrators in evaluating the performance of their investment pools. The 1980 study contains two parts: (1) comparative performance information and related investment performance statistics; and (2) other…

If taxes are higher in one town than in another it does not necessarily mean that residents of the low-tax town are better off; they may have had to pay high property prices to live in the more desirable low-tax town. It is incorrect to believe that property wealth differences are the only reason for spending disparities across towns. A more…

All school districts are affected by the stagnant economy, the growing needs of the public sector, the increased burden of transfer payments, and the limited growth of public revenues. Retrenchment is common to all school districts, but it may be more severe in affluent districts. By 1969-70, suburban school systems were the clear-cut expenditure…

Although the public is best served by governmental agencies which have integrated the major functions of planning, managing, and budgeting, it can be asserted that the planning function is paramount. A review of the evolution of public agency administration in the U.S. reveals that until recent years the planning function has been largely…

Planning-Programing-Budgeting systems (PPBS) provide the means for formulating more precise curricular objectives and coordinating curricular-fiscal planning within education. At the core of PPBS is the program budget that reports programs to be accomplished and allocates expenditures in terms of objectives relating to student achievement rather…

Year-round schools have a place in the urban education process. However, the many fiscal pressures facing large city school systems may prohibit them from instituting the rescheduled school year. Only if State governments make fundamental reforms in their educational finance systems can urban school districts participate in the benefits of…

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…

The article prepares the ground for an investigation designed to trace the economic effects of intergovernmental transfers by examining the motivations for the expenditure behavior of local governments and anticipates local responses to revenue sharing, both general and special. (Author/NQ)

Educational reforms rest on a true need and a fiscal capacity to finance them. Poorer states already making a substantial tax effort are especially vulnerable. Maine's reform package is based not on across-the-board teacher salary increases, but on increase in year-round professional earnings. Includes 2 tables, 2 figures, and 10 references. (MLH)

Analyzes data on the economic prospects of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin--including demographic and economic trends, trends in taxation systems, school revenue and expenditure trends, and future revenue prospects--and offers prognoses for individual states. Generally, short-range revenue prospects are bleak, and long-range…

Describes the development and use of a Potential Revenue Index for public schools that can be used to measure the extent to which a state school finance program equalizes potential property tax revenues among local education agencies. (JG)

Examines the relationship between selected socioeconomic data and state effort for the support of public schools among the 50 states. Two measures of state effort are identified for use as dependent variables, and multiple regression analysis is used to determine the relationship between socioeconomic factors and state effort for education.…