Since 1989, 27 states have passed one or multiple school finance reforms (SFRs), which are typically defined in the literature as court orders or legislative statutes that mandate major redesigns of a state's school funding formula. In most cases, SFRs increase the overall level of state spending on public schools, as well as target larger…

In 1923, Los Angeles teachers protested the state's biennial budget, a controversial document from newly elected governor Friend Richardson that significantly cut funding to government agencies. The budget was the culmination of more than a decade of fiscal policy reform that reflected a significant shift in anti-tax sentiment. The expansion of…

The purpose of this case is to allow students the opportunity to examine how the recent changes to depreciation incentives in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (P.L. 115-97, Dec. 22, 2017) may affect the purchase of capital assets. Bonus depreciation has been extended to allow an immediate 100% deduction for eligible property, which also now…

Rising federal debt threatens to reduce the growth of the economy, people's living standards, wages, and the standard of living. A policy solution needs to respect many constraints, most importantly, that it is seen as fair--both within generations and across generations. This article addresses concepts of fairness and their application to…

Property tax limits have been found to reduce property tax revenue, with compensatory increases in replacement taxes often not sufficiently making up for funding loss and systematically promoting inequity. Consequently, such practices suggest severe implications for school district fiscal capacity. Our study explored this issue in South Carolina…

School finance reforms are not well defined and are likely more prevalent than the current literature has documented. Using a Bayesian changepoint estimator, we quantitatively identify the years when state education revenues abruptly increased for each state between 1960 and 2008 and then document the state-specific events that gave rise to these…

This article explores the passage and failure of the 1973 Illinois Resource Equalizer formula which was designed to reduce disparities in school finance by breaking the connection between local wealth and school revenue. It argues that two sets of goals drove passage of the new law--equity and local property tax relief--and they came into conflict…

U.S. legislators recently brought back thirty-four tax programs from legislative limbo, extending them for three years. This includes the tuition and fee deduction, used by taxpayers to save on college expenses. This regressive tax policy flows heavily towards higher-income levels, with almost a third of the deduction going to those with incomes…

In 2019, the Texas Legislature passed House Bill 3 (HB 3) -- an $11.6 billion school finance reform law that dedicated over $6 billion toward investments in education and $5 billion toward replacing school property taxes with state aid. The property tax cut portion of HB 3 is set to expand each year, costing the state more money annually without…

Voters in Marin County have long been willing to pass parcel taxes to fund their schools. In 2016, taxes faced unprecedented opposition from local activists; taxes in Kentfield and Mill Valley were defeated or passed by previously unheard-of narrow margins, respectively. What changed? This case study uses district financial and demographic data as…

If there is one area of common ground between the Republican leadership in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, it is that the time has finally come for those entities that are not currently paying their fair share of taxes to step forward and be held accountable. Both the Senate and House tax reform bills propose that these…

The purpose of this research was to examine funding losses experienced by preschool to grade 12 (P-12) public school districts in Indiana, U.S., from an equity standpoint after the implementation of statewide property tax caps. All Indiana public school districts (N = 292) rely on property taxes as a major source of revenue, but districts…

After a fight over federal funding for fiscal year (FY) 2017, Congress has spent the past several months deciding how to fund the government for the upcoming fiscal year. Budget negotiations started in May 2017 when the Trump administration released a proposed budget for FY 2018 that included cuts to domestic spending. Under regular order, this…

California policymakers have established the expectation that all public school students should have access to a broad course of study, in classes where instruction is consistent with the state's content standards. Further, the state holds schools and school districts accountable for their ability to ensure that all students achieve at a specified…

Teacher salary decisions are often made with little connection to the pension obligations they entail. In this paper, authors Marguerite Roza and Jessica Jonovski model the impacts of late-term raises on teacher pension obligations showing that on average each dollar raise triggers $10 to $16 in new taxpayer obligations. The authors provide…