On Nov. 8, 2005, California voters will decide whether to pass Proposition 76, known as the "Live Within Our Means Act." Sponsored by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the measure seeks to address state budget problems that have been particularly severe in California since 2002 due to cuts in state taxes and increases in state expenditures.…

The funding of K-12 public schools in Ohio is a joint effort with 7.4 percent coming from the federal government, 47 percent coming from local sources and 45.6 percent coming from the state, based on FY04 revenue (the latest data available). Of the approximately $6.8 billion in state aid, about 80 percent is distributed through the Ohio School…

Individual states have a long tradition of providing financial support for their public K-12 schools. This support reflects the state's constitutional requirement to educate its citizens. However, states vary widely in both the amount of funding provided to public schools, and the distribution of funding among schools. The fundamental observation…

A workgroup of chief business officers from a diverse array of districts met over several months to make recommendations on changes to the community college funding formula. The following report is the product of the workgroup?s deliberations and is submitted for the review of the CCCT and CEOCCC boards and the broader community college system.…

This report is the first in a series examining the policy issues relating to charter schools in Hawai'i. It addresses the overall challenges to charter schools, the law establishing a charter funding formula, a new program area of the state budget, fringe benefits, and issues needing clarification and resolution. The purpose of this series of…

Attempts to provide useful data concerning higher education costs by instruction level. Analyzes case study results to determine the ratios between unit costs of providing instruction at lower-division, upper-division, and graduate levels. Considerable care must be exercised in developing and using cost ratios in funding or allocation formulas.…

In October 1994, President Clinton signed into law a substantially modified version of the Improving America's Schools Act (IASA), which extends and amends the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and related legislation. This article describes Title I LEA grant formulas before the 1994 amendments, major criticisms of these formulas, and an…

Financing school capital projects in New York State is a responsibility involving both local school districts and the state government. State building aid is provided through an aid ratio and approved expenditure formula. This formula has an equalizing effect among districts by explicitly providing an aid amount inversely proportional to property…

Explores the consequences of adopting formula-based systems of resource allocation and questions assumptions underpinning development of such systems. Findings, based on a case study of a British university that adopted a decentralized system in the late 1980s, revealed changes in micropolitical activities and organizational culture. (33…

Examines the U.S. Department of Education's Impact Aid program, a financial subsidy program for military children attending local public schools, specifically the influence of the complex funding formula combining the basic support program (BSP) with the learning opportunity threshold (LOT) on the distribution of aid to school districts. (PKP)

Recent research and a 1996 PBS documentary concluded that Ohio's educational finance system remains inequitable. Guarantees to districts facilitated equity, but assessed property valuation per pupil significantly predicted current operating expenditures during the 1980s. Effects of state loans, property tax limitations, and the lottery are…

Examines state- and district-level spending patterns in Tennessee to assess the extent to which the Basic Education Program (BEP) funding formula has affected spending in the state and spending in districts with varying characteristics, for example, poverty status of students, school district size. Suggests that BEP led to greater education…

New Zealand's special funding system allows state schools a greater level of independence in managing their property compared to most other countries. Schools receive a fixed budget as an entitlement from the three "pots" of the educational property funding structure. The government's unique use of accrual accounting together with a new…

This article highlights the Government Printing Office's (GPO) successful transition from a producer of print publications to a service provider and how this has affected the role of Federal Depository Libraries in an increasingly electronic service environment. It discusses the identity crisis currently facing Federal Depository Libraries during…

In this article, the author describes how the "weighted student" funding, under which money is divvied up based on the actual number and kinds of students at each school, gains favor among education leaders. With weighted-student funding, a district divides up money--rather than staff positions and programs--among schools. Proponents…