Daphne A. Kenyon - Recherche en IA spécialisée au MIT

Daphne A. Kenyon

(corresponding author)

Lincoln Institute of Land Policy
Cambridge, MA 02138

dkenyon433@aol.com

Andrew Reschovsky

Lincoln Institute of Land Policy
Cambridge, MA 02138

reschovsky@lafollette.wisc.edu

INTRODUCTION TO SPECIAL ISSUE

ON THE PROPERTY TAX AND THE

FINANCING OF K–12 EDUCATION

The property tax is the mainstay of local K–12 educa-
tion revenue. Public schools derive over 80 percent of
their local own-source revenue from the property tax
(Reschovsky 2014).1 En même temps, nearly half of to-
tal property tax dollars collected in the United States is
used to ﬁnance public elementary and secondary edu-
cation (U.S. Census Bureau 2013, 2014). This close link
between property taxation and school ﬁnance is one mo-
tivation for this special issue. Another motivation is the
state and local ﬁscal aftermath of the Great Recession.
Over the past few years the ﬁnancing of public
elementary and secondary education has become par-
ticularly challenging. In real per pupil terms, total rev-
enues devoted to public education fell by 6.2 pour cent
between the 2008–09 and 2011–12 school years.2 Al-
though comprehensive revenue data are not yet avail-
able for the most recent years, existing evidence points
to a continued decline in ﬁnancial support for public
éducation. Data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Quar-
terly Summary of State and Local Tax Revenue indicate
that per capita real local government property tax rev-
enues (for school and non-school purposes) declined by
3 percent between ﬁscal years 2011 et 2013 (Collins and
Langley 2014). And a survey conducted by the Center on
Budget and Policy Priorities found that in 33 states, réel

1. There is substantial variation across states in the share of local school revenues from the property
tax. In nine states and the District of Columbia, property taxes account for less than 60 percent of
local revenues, while in ten states over 90 percent of local revenues come from the property tax
(Reschovsky 2014).

2. Authors’ calculation based on revenue data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES

2014).

est ce que je:10.1162/EDFP_e_00140
© 2014 Association pour le financement et la politique de l'éducation

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INTRODUCTION TO SPECIAL ISSUE

per-student state education aid was lower in ﬁscal year 2014 than in ﬁscal year
2008 (Leachman and Mai 2014).

Although research is needed on the consequences of these reductions in
revenue on education, we do know that many school districts around the
country responded to reduced revenues by laying off employees. En fait, le
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2013) reports that between the employment
peak in June 2009 et juin 2013, education employment by local governments
fell by 340,000, a decline of 4.2 pour cent. During this same period, public school
enrollment grew by 1.4 pour cent (NCES 2013).

Current projections are for signiﬁcant increases in both K–12 enrollment
and cost per pupil. The NCES (2013) projects that per pupil expenditures will
increase from an average of $10,518 in 2009–10 to $12,530 in 2021–22. Le
NCES also projects substantial increases in public school enrollment, bien que
growth projections for speciﬁc states vary and are generally much higher for
the southern and western states (8.9 percent and 12.7 pour cent, respectivement,
depuis 2010 à 2021) than for the Northeast and Midwest (2.2 percent and
2.4 pour cent, respectivement). Although public policies and priorities can change,
based on current policies and revenue projections, it is unlikely that revenues
in support of public education will grow at a sufﬁcient rate to match the
projected growth in student enrollment and in costs.

National data indicate that in 2011–12, 10 percent of total public education
revenue came from the federal government, with the rest split fairly evenly
between state and local government sources (U.S. Census Bureau 2014). Fed-
eral government programs in support of education are classiﬁed as domestic
discretionary expenditures. Although to date Congress has done little to rein in
the growth of spending on entitlement programs, it has mandated strict limits
on the growth of domestic discretionary expenditures through the Budget Con-
trol Act of 2011 and the ﬁscal year 2014 Congressional budget agreement. Le
Congressional Budget Ofﬁce (2013) predicts that relative to the gross domestic
product, domestic discretionary spending will decline through at least 2023.
Given these overall spending caps, along with competition from other pressing
domestic needs, reductions in real per pupil federal education support appear
likely.

School funding systems vary tremendously across states. There will un-
doubtedly be great variation in future trends in state support for public ed-
ucation across states. Several long-run structural problems face many state
governments, cependant, and these are likely to constrain future state funding
for public education. On the revenue side, many states have narrow sales tax
bases that exclude many services and, as a result, fail to grow proportionally
to their economies. The revenue problems are exacerbated by the inability of

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Daphne A. Kenyon and Andrew Reschovsky

states to collect sales taxes on many Internet and mail order purchases. Dans
the past few years, a number of states have adopted individual income tax
cuts. These tax cuts have generally been enacted with no offsetting revenue
increases, or they have been funded using revenue from one-time state budget
surpluses.

On the spending side, funding for K–12 education must compete with
other priorities. In many states, spending on Medicaid will grow faster than
state tax revenues, a trend inﬂuenced in part by the aging of the population.
Many states are also facing large and growing unfunded pension liabilities.
Addressing these unfunded liabilities will undoubtedly require substantial
increases in state government pension contributions. Although polls indicate
that voters favor increased spending on education over spending in other areas,
unless state governments make politically difﬁcult decisions to increase taxes,
states’ growing Medicaid and pension obligations may crowd out spending on
K–12 education (Pew Research 2011).

With diminished prospects for increased funding from federal and state
governments, local school districts will likely play an increasingly important
role in funding public education. Increasing local government funding for
public education will require the politically difﬁcult step of increasing property
taxes or, if that proves impossible, the development and widespread adoption
of alternative sources of local government revenue. Neither strategy will be
easy to implement.

This rather bleak picture of the prospects for public education funding
raises a number of research questions. Par exemple, can state governments
adopt policies that would make the property tax more publicly acceptable?
What role do alternative local sources of revenue play in funding public ed-
ucation? Can their role be increased? Is it possible to design state education
aid systems that result in a more steady ﬂow of state aid during economic
downturns? Can state policies aimed at providing property tax relief be made
more effective? Can state aid systems be reformed in ways that increase the
educational opportunities of all students?

As a means of encouraging new research on these and related issues, nous
organized a conference on Property Tax and the Financing of K–12 Education.
The conference was held at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy in Cambridge,
MA, in October 2013. This special issue of Education Finance and Policy con-
tains revised versions of ﬁve of the papers presented at the Lincoln Institute
conference, plus two papers submitted as part of the journal’s Call for Papers
for the special issue. All the published papers went through the journal’s peer
review process. We served as guest editors, working closely with the journal’s
editors, Tom Downes and Dan Goldhaber.

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INTRODUCTION TO SPECIAL ISSUE

SUMMARY OF PAPERS
The paper, “Did Cuts in State Aid During the Great Recession Lead to Changes
in Local Property Taxes?” by Rajashri Chakrabarti, Max Livingston, and Joydeep
Roy, analyzes whether local revenue, and property taxes in particular, acted
as a stabilizing force when school districts faced cuts in state aid following
the Great Recession. Chakrabarti, Livingston, and Roy make use of a detailed
panel data set of 628 New York school districts (all but the largest districts)
depuis 2005 à 2012.

As in many states, education aid in New York was cut following the reces-
sion. Per pupil aid, which peaked at $8,700 dans 2009, fell to $8,200 dans 2012.
Prior to the Great Recession, per pupil local funding, property tax revenue,
and state aid had risen steadily. Once state aid declined in 2009, the rate of
increase of local funding and especially property taxes increased. Chakrabarti,
Livingston, and Roy’s panel data analysis indicates that on average a reduc-
tion of one dollar of state aid led to a 19-cent increase in property taxes and
a 26-cent increase in local funding. Further analysis demonstrates that most
of the property tax increases in response to cuts in state aid occurred in the
school districts in the upper quartile of per pupil property wealth.3 Although
more research is clearly needed, these results suggest that the challenges of
raising revenues to ﬁnance public education are likely to be particularly severe
in lower-wealth school districts.

The paper, “Michigan and Ohio K–12 Educational Financing Systems:
Equality and Efﬁciency,” by Michael Conlin and Paul N. Thompson, reminds
the reader how much state and local ﬁscal behavior varies across the United
États. Real median state aid per pupil fell steadily from 2002 à 2010 in Michi-
gan (depuis $8,700 à $7,700) and rose in Ohio (depuis $5,200 à $7,800).4 Sur
this same time period real median local revenue per pupil rose in both states.
The core of the Conlin and Thompson paper is a description of two very
different school ﬁnance systems, with different implications for equity and
efﬁciency. Michigan and Ohio have similar numbers of students and school
districts, and spend nearly the same amount on educating each student, mais
the similarities end there. Dans 1996, Michigan dramatically reduced its reliance
on the local property tax, substituting increased funding from state income and
sales taxes. Michigan restricts local districts from increasing property taxes to
fund operating expenditures. Ohio’s school ﬁnance system is characterized by
greater local control and districts face no limits on raising revenue for either
operating or capital spending.

3. The authors argue that the larger property tax increases in high wealth districts are due in part to
the structure of New York State’s school tax relief program, STAR, which is the subject of the Eom
et autres. paper in this special issue.

4. Conlin and Thompson report dollar magnitudes in 2010 dollars.

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Michigan distributes state revenue relatively evenly across school districts,
although districts in the wealthiest quintile receive about $600 more in state revenue per pupil than other districts. In Ohio, state aid disproportionately beneﬁts the poorest districts so districts in the wealthiest quintile receive from $3,000 à $5,800 less state revenue per pupil than the poorest districts. From examining ﬁscal patterns by wealth quintile, the authors conclude that Michigan’s strategy of restricting use of local property taxes for operating expenditures is not as effective a mechanism for reducing inequality as Ohio’s strategy of providing disproportionate aid to the poorest districts. En outre, their ﬁnding that Michigan districts, which are constrained in operating but not capital spending, spend more per pupil on capital expenditures than Ohio districts implies that Michigan’s system may distort school spending decisions, and thus create inefﬁciencies. Two papers are concerned with the unintended consequences of state legislation to provide property tax relief to taxpayers. “The Unintended Conse- quences of Property Tax Relief: New York’s STAR Program” by Tae Ho Eom, William Duncombe, Phuong Nguyen-Hoang, and John Yinger examines New York’s School Tax Relief (STAR) program, enacted in 1997 to provide state- funded property tax exemptions. STAR is the most important property tax relief program in New York. Over three million taxpayers are eligible and the program cost $3.3 billion in 2012. In a nutshell, STAR provides partial exemp-
tions from school property taxes for owner-occupied primary residences but
does not provide direct property tax relief to either renters or business owners.
STAR exemptions lower a homeowner’s property tax bill and the state reim-
burses the school district for the lost revenue. New York has adjusted STAR
exemptions over the years and exemptions are not the same for all school
districts. One adjustment called the “sales price differential factor” (SPDF)
provides increased exemptions in the counties with median residential sales
prices above the statewide median sales price.

Eom et al. put together a data set of New York school districts (except for
New York City) for the years 1998–99 to 2010–11 to estimate the impact of
STAR. They ﬁnd STAR changes the tax price5 of education for homeowners,
thereby inducing voters to spend about 3 à 4 percent more on education
on average. But this increased spending is achieved by increasing property
tax rates, which undercuts the goal of STAR. En effet, after induced higher
school spending and property taxes are taken into account, presque 80 pour cent
of the original property tax relief is offset in the “upstate big three” cities
(Albany, Buffalo, and Syracuse), and upstate small cities and rural districts

“Tax price” in the public sector is analogous to price in the private sector. A common deﬁnition of
tax price is the cost to a particular taxpayer of an extra unit of a public good (see Hettich 2005).

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INTRODUCTION TO SPECIAL ISSUE

ﬁnd over 40 percent of their original property tax savings has been offset. Le
authors conclude with some suggestions for making STAR more equitable
and reducing its unintended consequences. Par exemple, they recommend
eliminating the SPDF for exemptions because it channels a disproportionate
amount of state aid to the wealthiest school districts.

In “Unintended Consequences: The Impact of Proposition 2

1
2 Overrides
on School Segregation in Massachusetts” Jeffrey Zabel analyzes the impact on
racial segregation of Massachusetts’ tax limitation override process. A major
mechanism limiting property tax burdens in Massachusetts is the citizens’
1
initiative passed in 1980 known as Proposition 2
2 . This tax limit restricts
both the total amount of property taxes that a jurisdiction can collect each
year and the growth rate of its property tax levy. Speciﬁcally, the levy ceiling
limits the total amount collected to 2.5 percent of the value of all taxable
property. The levy limit caps the growth in the property tax levy to 2.5 pour cent,
with adjustments for growth in the property tax base attributable to net new
construction. With the approval of a referendum by a majority of local voters,
these levy limits can be permanently increased. Zabel’s research makes use
of data on 208 of the 351 Massachusetts cities and towns and thirty-one years
of override data (depuis 1982 à 2012). Over this period, the annual number of
override attempts ranged from 31 à 548 and the percentage of wins ranged
depuis 33 percent to just over half.

Previous research had shown that not all towns are equally likely to pass
overrides, and speciﬁcally that high-income towns were more likely to be
successful in passing one. Zabel hypothesizes that the greater likelihood for
high-income towns to pass overrides could account for some of the increasing
segregation across school districts in Massachusetts from the 1980s to the
présent. He ﬁnds towns that pass overrides have lower minority enrollments
than those towns that don’t. En outre, he ﬁnds successful overrides ear-
marked for schools reduce nonwhite enrollments in a town’s schools by nearly
7 percent four years after the successful override. Presumably this is because
successful overrides are a signal that attracts households with high demand
for education and deters households without such a high demand. In sum,
1
Zabel concludes that the override process linked to Proposition 2
2 has the un-
intended consequence of increasing racial segregation across school districts
in Massachusetts.

Phuong Nguyen-Hoang examines unintended consequences of a different
kind in “Tax Increment Financing and Education Expenditures: The Case of
Iowa.” Tax increment ﬁnance (TIF) is a tool now used in forty-eight states to
either reduce blight or promote economic development. Once a TIF district
is designated, for the length of its duration the assessed value of all taxable
property in the district prior to TIF designation (the base value) and any

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Daphne A. Kenyon and Andrew Reschovsky

increases in assessed value (the incremental value) are treated differently. Le
TIF governing authority uses some or all of the taxes on the incremental
value to ﬁnance development, while property tax receipts from the base value
continue to be channeled to the various overlapping jurisdictions, y compris
school districts. Upon expiration of the TIF district, all of the incremental
value and the base value can be taxed by the various overlapping jurisdictions.
Nguyen-Hoang’s question is how Iowa TIFs affect school spending. Iowa is an
interesting case study because of its heavy TIF usage. Dans 2011 Iowa had 2,200
TIF districts and 86 percent of the school districts contained one or more TIF
districts.

Nguyen-Hoang uses a panel data set on Iowa school districts between 2001
et 2011 to explore the effect of TIFs on the tax price of school spending and
thus the demand for school spending both during and just after the expiration
of a TIF district. He ﬁnds that TIFs reduce school spending modestly and do not
increase spending once they expire. Considering the various types of TIFs, il
ﬁnds residential and industrial TIFs reduce school spending but commercial
TIFs do not. Enfin, he ﬁnds that TIFs have a greater negative effect on school
spending in low-income or low-wealth districts than in high-income or high-
wealth districts. Based on his empirical results, Nguyen-Hoang makes several
policy suggestions. Le plus important, he suggests school districts be allowed
to opt out of a TIF district, as is policy in some other states, and that some of
the legislative measures making it easier to approve a TIF district in Iowa, tel
as the repeal of the requirement that a district be characterized as blighted, être
rolled back.6

The ﬁnal two papers examine alternatives to the property tax for funding
elementary and secondary education. In “The Rise of School-Supporting Non-
proﬁts,” Ashlyn Aiko Nelson and Beth Gazley construct a national panel data
set of school-supporting nonproﬁts, which include parent teacher associations,
parent teacher organizations, charitable school foundations, and booster clubs.
They report the number of such organizations increased by 230 percent from
1995 à 2010 and their revenues increased from about $197 million in 1995 à $880 million in 2010. But on a per pupil basis, these school-supporting
nonproﬁts are still very small. Average per pupil voluntary contributions from
these nonproﬁts were about $28 dans 2010 while in that same year average per pupil spending in K–12 schools was $10,615.7

Nelson and Gazley’s empirical analysis highlights several

important
motifs. Larger districts are more likely to receive revenues from a

6. For an overview of the state requirements for TIF programs, see Kenyon, Langley, and Paquin (2010,

pp. 70–71).

7. The U.S. Census Bureau (2014) reports that in ﬁscal year 2012, 2.5 percent of total public elementary
and secondary school revenue came from “voluntary contributions and other local revenues.”

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379

INTRODUCTION TO SPECIAL ISSUE

school-supporting nonproﬁt, and the more well-off districts (measured by
property tax revenues per pupil, education levels, household income, and un-
employment rates) are more likely to receive revenues from school-supporting
nonproﬁts and receive higher per-pupil contributions. Le plus important, le
data show that contributions from school-supporting nonproﬁts do not gen-
erally serve as a substitute for property tax ﬁnancing. Plutôt, school districts
with higher revenues from federal sources and from property taxes also have
higher contributions from school supporting charities.

In “So Slow to Change: The Limited Growth of Nontax Revenues in Public
Education Finance, 1991–2010,” Tom Downes and Kieran M. Killeen look at
additional potential revenue sources that could supplement or substitute for
property taxes. They hypothesize that just as state and local governments gen-
erally increased their reliance on charges and miscellaneous revenues (lequel
include fees) signiﬁcantly in the 1970s, school districts might increase their
reliance on fees and other sources of local nontax revenue in response to the
ﬁscal constraints of the Great Recession. They analyze Census data on student
fees, including those for student transportation and school lunches, and on
other miscellaneous nontax revenues.

Downes and Killeen ﬁnd these revenues grew from FY1992 to 2011, mais
at a slower rate than other revenue so that fees and miscellaneous revenues
became a smaller fraction of total revenue. By FY2011, fees and miscellaneous
revenues were still under $400 per pupil. Downes and Killeen offer two major
hypotheses for the lack of growth in these revenues.8 One is that in schools
the opportunity for fee-based ﬁnancing appears to be quite limited. Another is
that school districts and other governments may be more likely to change their
ﬁnancing structures, including a greater reliance on fees and other nontax
revenues, in the face of long-term structural changes (such as the imposition
of tax and expenditure limitations) than as a reaction to an economic downturn,
which is by its very nature a temporary phenomenon.

CONCLUSION
Three central themes emerge from the papers in this special issue. The ﬁrst
is the potential for unintended consequences to arise from state legislation.
Eom et al. ﬁnd New York’s prominent property tax relief program, STAR,
induces voters to increase school spending and raise property taxes, thereby
undercutting much of the intended property tax relief. Zabel ﬁnds property
tax overrides in Massachusetts have led to increased racial segregation. Et

8. According to U.S. Census Bureau (2014) data, dans 2012 charges and other local nontax revenue

accounted for 5 percent of total public school revenues.

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Nguyen-Hoang ﬁnds the use of TIF in Iowa has led to modest reductions in
education spending.

A second theme is the potential for state school ﬁnance and property tax
policies to provide greater advantages for high-wealth or high-income school
districts than for low-wealth or low-income districts. In some cases, this pro-
wealthy tilt is an explicit program feature, such as with the sales price differ-
ential adjustment factor in STAR, which channels a disproportionate amount
of property tax relief to the wealthiest school districts, and with Michigan’s
state aid system, which sends about 7 percent more state aid per pupil to
the wealthiest districts than other districts. Dans d'autres cas, the tilt toward dis-
tricts that are already more well-off arises in more indirect ways. Chakrabarti,
Livingston, and Roy ﬁnd high-wealth school districts are more likely to respond
to cuts in state aid by increasing property tax revenues. Zabel notes higher in-
come towns are more likely to pass property tax overrides. Nguyen-Hoang
ﬁnds TIFs have a greater negative effect on school spending in low-income
or low-wealth districts than in high-income or high-wealth districts. Enfin,
Nelson and Gazley ﬁnd well-off districts are more likely to receive revenue
from school-supporting nonproﬁts and their per-pupil contributions tend to
be higher.

A third theme is the enduring importance of the property tax in the funding
of public education in the United States. As demonstrated by the papers by
both Nelson and Gazley and by Downes and Killeen, nontax revenue plays a
relatively minor role in the funding of public schools. Aussi, there exists no
evidence that the share of revenue from student fees and charges, school-
supporting nonproﬁts, or from miscellaneous nontax revenues has increased
during or after the Great Recession.

These ﬁndings suggest that in order to ensure sufﬁcient funding for pub-
lic education into the future, efforts should be made to make the property
tax a more appealing source of revenue. These property tax improvements
might include the expansion of well-designed targeted property tax relief pro-
grams (such as circuit breakers), the adoption of property tax deferral programs
for taxpayers facing high property tax burdens or rapid increases in their
property tax bills, and improvements in tax administration that focus on in-
creased transparency.

Given the great diversity in school ﬁnance and property tax systems across
the United States and the ﬁscal challenges ahead, the papers in this special
issue cannot possibly provide insights into the full range of policies needed
to assure adequate and equitable funding for public education. Cependant, it
is our hope these papers will be thought-provoking for both policy makers
and researchers, and also inspire additional research on property taxation and
school funding.

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381

INTRODUCTION TO SPECIAL ISSUE

The authors want to thank Bethany Paquin for her excellent research assistance and
editing suggestions and Joan Youngman for her helpful suggestions on a previous
brouillon.

RÉFÉRENCES
Collins, Catherine, and Adam Langley. 2014. Major property tax developments in 2013:
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Hettich, Walter. 2005. Tax price. In The encyclopedia of taxation & tax policy, édité par
Joseph J. Cordes, Robert D. Ebel, and Jane G. Gravelle, pp. 419–421. Washington, CC:
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Kenyon, Daphne A., Adam H. Langley, and Bethany P. Paquin. 2010. Rethinking property
tax incentives for business. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Leachman, Michael, and Chris Mai. 2014. Most states funding schools less than before the
récession. Washington, CC: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

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National Center for Education Statistics. 2014. National public education ﬁnancial survey
data, school year 2010–11. Available http://nces.ed.gov/ccd/stﬁs.asp. Accessed 17 Juin
2014.

Pew Research. 2011. Fewer want spending to grow, but most cuts remain unpop-
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10/fewer-want-spending-to-grow-but-most-cuts-remain-unpopular/. Accessed 17 Juin
2014.

Reschovsky, Andrew. 2014. The future role of the property tax in the funding of K–12
education in the U.S. In Education, atterrir, et emplacement, edited by Gregory K. Ingram and
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U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. 2013. Current employment statistics: Table B-1a: Employees
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