The May primary election added seven school district referenda to the total number occurring in Indiana since 2008, three of which passed and four of which were rejected by voters. In the 2011 primary election, there were five General Fund referenda and two construction referenda. Of General Fund referenda, two passed (Crown Point Community School…

Traces the presence of tax burden equity and educational funding equity interests in recent court rulings in order to place Connecticut's Horton vs Meskill in context. Also describes the California and New Jersey state legislatures' responses to similar state Supreme Court rulings on school finance. (Author/IRT)

On December 24, 1994, the Michigan State Legislature passed a comprehensive school finance reform package for the K-12 education system. This document analyzes the school finance reform package and presents a comprehensive review of the issues affected by the proposed reforms. The first section reviews the overall financial components of the…

Arguments for and against extension of Section 170 of the Internal Revenue Code, which permits tax deductions for money or property gifts to nonprofit organizations, are presented, considering both theoretical and practical issues. (AVAIL: Dennis & Co., 251 Main St., Buffalo, NY 14203) (MSE)

This paper, number 18 in a series, chronicles the politics of school finance reform in the state of California from the mid-sixties to the passage of Proposition 13. It provides a description of the school finance setting prior to the consideration of Assembly Bill 65, including such events as the Serrano I and II decisions and the state…

This document summarizes the Minnesota state district court opinion in "Skeen v. State of Minnesota" and outlines changes made by the 1992 legislature in the state school finance system. In "Skeen," the court found several elements of the state's school finance system unconstitutional. These included the referendum levy, the…

This paper analyzes Texas Senate Bill 351 that reforms public school funding. The bill provides for additional state funding and significant increases in local property taxes. The bill creates county education taxing units to neutralize the enormous property wealth differences found among the state's 1,056 school districts. It also provides a…

Internal Revenue Service actions in two areas are of particular concern to colleges: its campaign to remove the tax-exempt status of institutions that engage in racial discrimination, and its efforts to tax unrelated business incomes of tax-exempt organizations. Problems created by these actions are discussed. (JMD)

Montana's House Bill No. 28, an effort to equalize school funding among Montana public school districts, is described in this report. Included are: the study resolution; summary of committee recommendations; history of the school funding lawsuit and legislative reactions; explanations of elements of the new school funding mechanism, changes in…

State litigation involving unconstitutional school financing systems are described in this document, which focuses on efforts in Texas to reform the financing of public education. Since its school finance system was declared unconstitutional in 1987, two subsequent proposals have been struck down by the Texas Supreme Court for the following…

Reviewing literature on educational finance and law, this paper analyzes the rationale for the recent school finance reform movement and recounts the movement's progress from 1965 to 1979. An overview of the problem discusses state equalization programs' ability to provide financial equity and the relationship of financial equity to equal…

This publication contains testimony, given by personnel at the Center for the Study of Educational Finance, initially intended for legislators at the federal and state levels to help them deal with public policy matters in K-12 finance. The first document is testimony given before the United States Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources,…

Actual financial data from audit reports on county education districts (CEDs) are presented as required by the Texas Education Code. In summary, it is noted that the CEDs generally fulfilled their obligations relative to collection and distributions of taxes; and that administrative expenditures were not excessive and the amount of delinquent…

Updated information is provided in this addendum to an original report that assessed the equity of the Kansas School District Equalization Act (SDEA) from 1973 to 1988. This consultants' analysis on behalf of Turner School District in "Mock v. State of Kansas" consists of five parts. Following an introduction, section 2 reviews the…

An analysis of the effect of the Kansas School District Equalization Act (SDEA) of 1973 on public school financing is provided in this consultants' report on behalf of six plaintiff school districts in "Newton United School District 373 et al., v. the State of Kansas." Following an introduction, the second section sets forth the initial…