A state's school finance system is a series of procedures, formulas, and mechanisms designed to allocate state support to the school districts, reimburse school districts for particular expenses they incur, control the spending levels and tax rates of school districts, regulate how districts spend revenues, and provide incentives for school districts. This report is the first in a series of three reports on Florida's Education Finance System. The Joint Legislative Auditing Committee directed our office to determine how Florida's education funding system compares to funding systems in other states. Report #95-50 is the second report and focuses specifically on Florida's education finance system. The third report will focus on Florida's education finance system and performance-based budgeting.
Based on our analysis of Florida's education finance system and the education finance systems used in 15 other states we found:
Some states' approaches to funding education require local revenues, while others do not;
States place varying degrees of control on the amount of local funds that may be used for education;
Florida and many other states include student need factors in their education finance system;
Florida and half of the states we analyzed also use geographic adjustments; and
Florida is in the minority of states analyzed that use financial performance incentive programs.
The state education finance systems included in the report are: Alabama, Alaska, California, Florida, Hawaii, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin.
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