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Elimination of Federal Impact Aid Dollars in 2015 Budget

By John Musso posted 05-09-2014 11:13

  
Starting in 1950, Congress has provided eligible school districts with funds through the U.S. Department of Education Impact Aid Program (Public Laws 81-815 and 81-874) in order to compensate them for property tax revenue not received due to tax-exempt federal property. This includes military installations, Indian students, or other federally connected students.

Since its enactment, the Impact Aid law has gone through many changes, but has continued to help support those school districts that have high concentrations of students who reside on military installations, Indian land, various other Federal property, as well as those children whose parents are in the armed forces or who are employed on Federal properties.

Today Impact Aid is part of the 1965 Title VIII of the ESEA Act, but continues to help back-fill a portion of lost property tax revenue for affected school districts.

And while not every school system qualifies for Impact Aid, those that do would experience extreme financial hardships during a time when any loss of revenue could prove catastrophic.

ASBO International, along with many other educational associations has submitted a letter to Congress urging them not to eliminate this $67 million line item from the 2015 budget submitted by the administration that would further exacerbate existing school funding issues.


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05-19-2014 07:05

John,
Glad to see ASBO working with its partners to advocate for this funding source to be retained.