Tax Limit Repeal and School Spending

This is the first study to evaluate the effects on school spending of repeal of constitutional property tax levy limits. While several studies report that the imposition of tax limits constrains local government and school district spending, this study fails to reject the null hypotheses that tax limit repeal in New York State induced no significant immediate or gradual impact on the average spending of either all districts subject to tax limits or districts that were spending at their limits. The latter finding suggests that these “at limit” districts were not constrained by tax limits, either because the desired spending levels were exactly “at limit,” or because the limits were no longer binding after the districts utilized other non-property tax revenues such as state aid, especially from the supplemental Hurd aid program.