One of my semi-retirement activities has been trying to right the wrong caused initially by the Oklahoma Tax Commission’s error in construing a 2015 amendment to the statute that apportions motor vehicle collections to Oklahoma school districts. After winning every phase of that litigation and withstanding a silly challenge by overpaid school districts that should know better, it has now morphed into litigation with the Oklahoma State Department of Education that involves understanding the purpose and effect of the foundation aid section of the state aid formula. Reinforcements arrived this week in the persons of Associate Professor of Economics Matt Hendricks and student John Reaves with the University of Tulsa. An academic paper we have researched and written together over the last several months is now published online by the Institute for the Study of Education Finance at the University of Oklahoma. Here it is (if first link is still out of commission, try the next):
Understanding the Impact of the Five Lagging Chargeables in OK.pdf – Google Drive
Hendricks-Reaves-Watts-Full-Report.pdf (oucreate.com)
As background for the paper and how we got where we are today here are posts I have written:
Sadly, the analysis required to understand what is going on seems to elude otherwise high functioning school finance personnel. Here are the posts I have written trying every which way to show the correct analysis.
The silliness of school world’s belief that the subsequent year adjustments in state aid corrected the losses caused by the OTC is understood with simple logic: if you underpay me, I’m not made whole till you over pay me AND you can’t spend the same money twice (first to correct prior year loss and then to pay for current year expenses). It is also easy to see in the simple tables we’ve used as shown in the “tables rock” post above. The real data that our paper analyzes demonstrate it also. And lastly the algebra proves it with skills expected of every Oklahoma high school graduate according to the State Department of Education:
As always a pizza delivery on me for the first to ID the photo location.