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School District Enrollment Projections and Budget Forecasting

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The Palgrave Handbook of Government Budget Forecasting

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Public Debt, Spending, and Revenue ((PDSR))

Abstract

School districts use enrollment projections to inform budgetary forecasts and strategic planning. In practice, enrollment projections should consider demographic and socio-economic factors, which can then be used to generate forecasts for personnel salary and benefits and other expenditures. Revenue forecasts should be conducted for different streams of local, state, and federal revenues and then considered in relation to expenditure forecasts when formulating the budget. Despite the typical approach to projections and forecasts that school districts use during the budget process, there is a limited but growing literature evaluating their effectiveness. This chapter reviews the limited literature on enrollment projections and budgetary forecasts in school districts and then descriptively analyzes forecast error with a panel of Kentucky school districts from 2001 to 2013. Results show that forecast error varies over the business cycle, with revenue underestimations increasing in magnitude during the Great Recession. Given these results and a discussion of limitations in the literature, the chapter concludes that additional research on school district projection and forecast methods is necessary.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Data were obtained from the Kentucky DoE which maintains a validated longitudinal database.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political Science and Public Administration, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA

    Peter Jones

  2. Economist and Revenue Forecaster, Independent Budget Office, New York, NY, USA

    Cole Rakow

  3. School of Public Affairs and Administration, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI, USA

    Vincent Reitano

Authors
  1. Peter Jones
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  2. Cole Rakow
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  3. Vincent Reitano
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Correspondence to Peter Jones .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Austin W. Marxe School of Public and International Affairs, Baruch College, New York, NY, USA

    Daniel Williams

  2. Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, New York University, New York, NY, USA

    Thad Calabrese

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Jones, P., Rakow, C., Reitano, V. (2019). School District Enrollment Projections and Budget Forecasting. In: Williams, D., Calabrese, T. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Government Budget Forecasting. Palgrave Studies in Public Debt, Spending, and Revenue. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18195-6_15

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18195-6_15

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-18194-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-18195-6

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