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Public Finance Initiative

The Public Finance Initiative conducts research to examine the policies – and the administration that implements them -- regarding governmental revenue and expenditures at the state and local level. The Public Finance Initiative aims to produce and communicate objective, high quality research that informs policy makers, administrators and other interested parties as well as to raise new questions worthy of future study. Our projects evaluate various components of Missouri law and implementation, as well as practices and results in other states in order to bring the benefit of comparative knowledge to Missouri’s policy makers and administrators.

The field of public finance concerns itself with all aspects of governmental revenue generation, budgeting and spending at all levels of government. Current we give primary attention to the following topical areas:

• Property Tax Policy and Administration: Our major research emphasis concerns Missouri’s property tax system, both at the local and at the state level. While more than 99% of the revenue goes to local governments and while most assessments and tax rates are set locally, state policy governs what can and cannot be done. For a description of the Missouri Property Tax, click here.
• Education Finance: Integrally related to the property tax is the issue of education finance. Public education is primarily funded by a combination of local property taxes and state funding. The amount contributed by the state is affected by local assessments and statewide equalization. Therefore, besides being an important topic in its own right, education finance overlaps with our work regarding property tax policy and implementation.
• State & Local Tax Revenue and Policy: In addition to our focus on the property tax and education finance, we have also examined other aspects of Missouri tax policy. Our current efforts have resulted in the availability of a substantial number of data tables which can be found on this website. click here.
• State Fiscal Outlook: Another topic related to tax revenue and policy is the financial outlook of the state. This has been an important topic over the past decade and is especially important now.