I’ve read about Beverly Hills and Irvine becoming “basic aid” districts. What does that mean?
On a yearly basis, a district is classified as basic aid or revenue limit. To make the determination, you start with property taxes. Each district is allocated a percentage of its local property taxes for schools. This serves as the base part of the funding equation. If the property tax funding is low, then the state provides more money to reach a revenue limit, or the amount of money the state is willing to spend on education in that school district. (The revenue limit, and the percent of property taxes the district keeps, are different for each school district and were set in the 70s.) If the money from the local property taxes for a district becomes greater than the revenue limit, that district becomes “basic aid” and can keep the funding above and beyond its revenue limit. By contrast, the only way a revenue limit district can increase its funding is to increase enrollment or find other sources of local revenue such as from an education foundation. A basic aid district benefits fro
