School finance commission to focus on state, local share of cost

A commission studying how Nebraska pays for schools will focus for now on how much should be paid by the state versus local taxpayers.

The new School Financing Review Commission is supposed to recommend changes in how the state pays for schools. But in its meeting Monday, Education Commissioner Brian Maher recommended its first report, due Dec. 1, should concentrate on the desired percentage of funding, not specific recommendations on how to get there.

“What's appropriate -- having the state fund all of education, 50% of education costs? What's the right number? It would be nice, I think if we could, going into the next legislative session, giving the Legislature a target,” Maher said.

Bryce Wilson of the Department of Education estimated that in the most recent fiscal year, the state provided about 53% of total school funding. That was up from 39% the year before, but the shift was largely an accounting change, due to the Legislature’s conversion of an income tax credit into a property tax credit.

Under the former system, people paid their property taxes and then got a partial refund on their income taxes, so what they paid for schools was counted as local funding. Under the new system, money the state would have spent for income tax refunds instead goes to schools, reducing how much they need to collect in property taxes, and being accounted as state, rather than local spending.

Commissioners voiced no objection to making the percentage of state and local funding the focus of their next meeting, Oct. 31, although additional agenda items can be added later.

By way of full disclosure, Education Commissioner Brian Maher is a member of Nebraska Public Media's governing board, the Nebraska Educational Telecommunications Commission.