Fiscal Roles and Intergovernmental Relations of State Capital Funding on School District Budgeting and Bond Issue in the United States

2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 18K02405
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Review Section: Basic Section 09020:Sociology of education-related
• Research Institution: Senshu University
• Principal Investigator: Hanawa Takeo 専修大学, 経済学部, 教授 (90434422)
• Project Period (FY): 2018-04-01 – 2024-03-31
• Keywords: アメリカ初等中等教育（学校区） / 州・地方債（一般財源保証債） / 地方財産税（自主財源） / 政府間財政関係 / 一般基金 / 資本基金 / 債務管理基金 / 州資本投資委員会

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This research project summarizes in the following three points.
First, judging the local taxation power of each school district, if the amounts of local property tax allocated to the General Fund accounts for 75% or more of total local property tax revenues, the district would be classified in a category of "weak", also means that the allocated property tax tends to be lower than the expenditures of Teacher Salary in the General Fund. Secondly, the superintendents play the roles of administrating the issue process of General Obligation Bonds, sharing the financial information including the repayment schedules in association with financial acceptance companies, through reporting to the state government. Third, state capital investment committee generally has an administrative power to decide funding and evaluate the local transparency and governance for bond issue at the districts, furthermore, state government acts more increased intervention to the districts as the upper government.

Free Research Field

アメリカ地方財政，教育財政，教育政策

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

高度に分権化されたアメリカの初等中等教育財政を全面的に扱った実証分析は，日本はおろか本国アメリカでもほとんど行われていない．分権を進めると格差が生まれ，集権を図ると自治が育まれないという基本認識は，成熟した先進諸国における政府が取り組むべき最重要課題とされてきたが，各国の歴史や価値や政治の下に手付かずであり，研究も不十分である．本研究の学術的意義は，初等中等教育財政（学校区財政）について分権と格差の制度的矛盾という大きな問題意識から接近し，州（上位政府）が学校区の資本形成にどのような見解をもち，どのような理由から財政支援を行っているのか（または放置しているのか）を実証的に解明する点にある．