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2004 SESSION

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HJ 148 Constitutional amendment; state and local funding for public education (first reference).

Introduced by: J. Chapman Petersen | all patrons    ...    notes | add to my profiles

SUMMARY AS INTRODUCED:

Constitutional amendment (first resolution); state and local funding for public education. Requires the General Assembly, in apportioning the state and local share for supporting an educational program meeting the Standards of Quality (SOQ), to ensure that the state share is no less than one-third of the total costs of providing such educational program in each school division.

Currently, each locality's share of SOQ costs is apportioned pursuant to the composite index of local ability to pay. This weighted formula compares three local measures of wealth--real property values, adjusted gross income, and local option sales taxes--to statewide averages and adjusts these indicators by student population and total population. The sum of two-thirds of the student population (Average Daily Membership or ADM) component and one-third of the population component is then multiplied by a local nominal share of the SOQ designated by the appropriation act.

The product of this formula--the local composite index (LCI)--is then applied to the established SOQ costs, less the estimated sales and use tax revenues returned to the locality on the basis of its school-age population, to determine required local expenditures to meet the SOQ.

The 2003 Appropriation Act sets a composite index of .8000 as the maximum index that will be used to compute local shares, thereby guaranteeing a minimum state contribution of 20 percent in those localities with a high fiscal capacity. The Commonwealth provides 55 percent of SOQ costs statewide; localities provide the remaining 45 percent (2003 Acts of Assembly, c. 1042, § 1-54, Item 147 A 4).


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