Impact of the New York State Tax Levy Cap on School Districts’ Financing: A Retrospective and Prospective Analysis

The purpose of this quantitative archival case study, utilizing a retrospective analysis and prospective model, was to highlight the consequences of the enactment of the New York State Tax Cap Legislation, Chapter 97 of the Laws of 2011, on the children in New York State. The data were gained from the New York State Education Department for 669 public school districts (excluding the “Big Five” school districts), from the period of 2012-13 through 2016-17, to create a financial forecast model to project the gap in revenues from 2017-18 through 2021-22, based on districts Need/Resource Capacity index. The forecast showed a significant disparity in the per-capita funding gap between expenditures and tax levies for high-need rural districts at $20,529, compared to low-need districts at $7,617. The study shows how serious and tenuous the future of school districts is in the State of New York and how their ability to service the children in their communities is being compromised. This study calls for immediate action by its citizens to demand that the funding of school districts change and that the injustice of not providing the same level of education to all students comes to an end