You are the superintendent of Alpha County Schools, a large suburban school district that is highly competitive with the neighboring district, Beta County Schools. Factors such as teacher salaries, school facilities, technology, and per pupil spending highlight how the districts are vying for educational supremacy. Lately you suspect that Beta County is exerting greater fiscal effort than your school district. You have shared this awareness with the school board. They have asked you to support your claim at the next school board meeting by presenting all the data possible regarding the two counties’ local fiscal effort. The school budgets for the coming school year will be presented to the governing bodies in the next 4 months. If Beta County is investing more of its resources in educating its children in their public schools, this could be a bargaining chip at budget time.

Using the data in Table 6.15, explain the concepts of capacity and relative fiscal effort, presenting various effort indices to explain the relative fiscal effort of both localities in funding education. Which of the tax base factors will you recommend that the school board present when making its case for budget increases to the locality’s governing body? Explain your rationale. You may present this in a memo or in a voiceover PowerPoint presentation (depending on your instructor’s guidelines).