Deficit Financing of Schools? The Impact of Statutory Change on School District Borrowing Behavior.

Autor/in	Edlefson, Carla
Titel	Deficit Financing of Schools? The Impact of Statutory Change on School District Borrowing Behavior.
Quelle	(1994), (32 Seiten) PDF als Volltext kostenfreie Datei Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Monographie
Schlagwörter	Budgeting; Budgets; Discriminant Analysis; Educational Economics; Educational Finance; Elementary Secondary Education; Financial Exigency; Fiscal Capacity; Property Taxes; School District Spending; School District Wealth; State Aid; State School District Relationship; Ohio + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Finanzhaushalt; Diskriminanzanalyse; Bildungsökonomie; Bildungsfonds; Finanzielle Härte; Finanzmittel; Staatliches Schulamt
Abstract	In the 70s and 80s, Ohio relaxed its balanced-budget laws to give school districts more options for borrowing over the end of the fiscal year. Two provisions that permit districts to borrow against next year's revenues in order to balance the current year's budget include the Emergency School Advancement program and the Spending Reserve. This paper presents findings of a study that assessed the impact of the liberalized statutes on school-district budgeting behavior. Discriminant analysis was conducted on data that were obtained from the Ohio Department of Education on all 611 K-12 districts. The data did not support the hypothesis that relative poverty of the tax base, nor pressures from at-risk programs to spend, were causes of Spending Reserve use before 1990. Most of the districts using the Spending Reserve before 1990 did so to smooth out their incoming cash, and districts that began using it during or after 1990 did so because of insufficient revenues. A troubling economic sign is that a few districts are chronically fiscally stressed and continue to borrow. Morever, use of the two provisions is on the increase. A potential financial crisis exists if neither revenue increases nor spending cuts can be realized. The state education department should consider monitoring Spending-Reserve districts more closely. Contains 17 endnotes, 5 tables of data, and 1 exhibit with predictor variables. (LMI)
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC