A new report warns that the future for state school spending appears gloomy, especially when other funding obligations for health care and retirement are considered.
The State Budget Crisis Task Force includes as its chairman Paul Volcker, a former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve; George Shultz, a former U.S. secretary of state under President Ronald Reagan; and Alice Rivlin, who served on the President’s Debt Commission and was the founding director of the Congressional Budget Office.
In tackling a variety of fiscal-policy issues, the report’s introductory letter says that the “storm warnings are very serious” and urges significant action to head off long-term problems.
The report fastens on the pressure that increasing P-12 enrollment will put on state budgets in the coming years. And property taxes, traditionally relied on to finance education, are increasingly being capped or otherwise limited by a number of states.
