This paper develops new measures of non-school revenue capacity and environmental costs for Massachusetts cities and towns as the basis for a new municipal aid formula. On the capacity side, we account for the constraints of a tax limitation by estimating them as a function of residents'...

Using a cost-capacity gap framework, this paper is the first study to quantify nonschool fiscal disparities across Connecticut municipalities. In the absence of a Uniform Chart of Accounts for municipalities, the paper uses a newly assembled dataset of multi-year local financial records,...

Fiscal disparities exist when some municipalities face higher costs for providing a given level of public services or fewer taxable resources to finance those services than others. A municipality's economic and social characteristics can affect both costs and resources.The potential for fiscal...

Despite multiple court cases and repeated efforts at reform, there are still significant concerns about the equity and the adequacy in Connecticut’s public K–12 education funding. One vital component of any attempt to reform education finance is a methodologically rigorous evaluation of what...

Fiscal disparities exist when some municipalities face higher costs for providing a given level of public services or fewer taxable resources to finance those services than others. A municipality's economic and social characteristics can affect both costs and resources. The potential for fiscal...