The OpenSky Policy Institute has released a new report called Investing in our Future: An Overview of Nebraska’s Education Funding System.
Executive Director Renee Fry says OpenSky decided to look at education finance about a year ago. Fry says the group couldn’t effectively look at budget and tax policy without looking at education finance.
She says the primer is meant to explain to people how Nebraska’s K-12 education system is funded. Fry says there are three sections to the report. The first one is the history of education finance in Nebraska.
"We thought it was really important to look back and see how we got to where we are today. Then the second chapter in the formula lays out how we fund education. It actually goes through the formula to show how we determine how much state aid a school district gets. And then the third chapter we look at some of the spending and tax restrictions on schools and then we evaluate the system in the final chapter.”
Fry says Nebraska’s K-12 schools are more reliant on local sources of revenue than schools in every other state in the nation.
Fry will present the report at UNO’s Thompson Alumni Center tomorrow morning at 8:00. The event is open to the public.