THE PARCEL TAX AS A SOURCE OF LOCAL REVENUE FOR CALIFORNIA PUBLIC SCHOOLS

School finance is highly centralized in California, as the state determines almost all of the revenue school districts receive. The only significant source of local revenue is a tax on parcels of land. We show that the likelihood a district levies this tax is positively related to the income of district residents and negatively related to the tax-price of spending per pupil in the district. It is also negatively related to the revenue a district receives under the state's school finance system. Districts turn to the parcel tax when their residents' demand for spending is not met by the revenue provided by the state.