State Support for Public K-12 Education Detailed

The following is a total re-posting of a WASB release including the WASB Editor's note:

The nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau has released its annual memo detailing estimated state support for public K-12 education in 2011-12. The state share in the 2011-12 is estimated to be 61.73 percent of partial school revenues.

The memo shows that state funding for K-12 education (including funding for vouchers and independent charters) dropped by $432.1 million from 2010-11 to 2011-12. It also shows that 80 percent of all districts received state support of between 30.02 percent and 74.57 percent, calculated using the partial school revenues measure, with the median (half above, half below) being 59.89 percent and the average at 59.22 percent. The Beloit School District received the next highest percentage of state support at 86.30 percent, while the Geneva J4 School District receives the lowest percentage of state support at 18.19 percent.

State funding totaled $5,802.1 million, while partial school revenues totaled $9,398,7 million. State funding breaks down as follows:
General School Aids: $4,285 million
Categorical Aids: $608.5 million
School Levy/First Dollar Credits: $897.4 million
State Residential Schools: $11.2 million

Editor’s Note: Partial school revenues was first used to measure of state support when the state statutorily committed to fund two-thirds (66.7 percent) of certain K-12 costs, a commitment that ended with the 2002-03 school year. The measure includes state dollars provided as state property tax credits, which reduce individual property taxpayers’ bills but are not available to be budgeted by school districts.

The statutory commitment to fund two-thirds of certain K-12 costs lasted from 1996-97 to 2002-03. State support under this commitment was defined by statute. The statutes defined both the numerator (both general and categorical state aids and state property tax credits) and denominator (general and categorical state aids and gross property tax levies) of the two-thirds state funding calculation. The state’s funding commitment was calculated on a statewide basis. Thus, an individual district’s level of state support could be higher or lower than two-thirds depending on the district's per member shared costs and equalized value, as well as the amount of funding the district received through categorical aids and the levy credit.