So Slow to Change: The Limited Growth of Non-Tax Revenues in Public Education Finance, 1991-2010

We examine changes in the use of nontax revenues for education finance from 1991-2010. Beyond the summary of usage over time, we ask whether non- traditional revenues like fees accentuate or mitigate the impact of downturns. More generally, we examine the extent to which school districts have responded to fiscal pressures by turning to nontax revenues. We also document the extent to which the use of nontax revenues varies across according to student poverty status. We show that alternative revenues continue to be a small source of local revenues and have increased quite little since the early 1990s. There was at most a minimal shift to nontax revenues in downturns, though there is evidence of greater use of these revenues among school districts facing more permanent fiscal pressures like tax limits. Differential access to fee revenues and other alternative revenues during downturns may slightly accentuate inequities in K-12 education spending.