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aid school districts have fewer than one hundred students for whom they are claiming payments.

Is your sample of 1600 weighted in proportion to the different types of school districts there are receiving impact aid both in terms of numbers of pupils for which they are claiming payments and in terms of the payments they are receiving? Is it a weighted average? Mr. MARTIN. Let me ask Mr. Harrison who is responsible for the performance of the analysis to respond.

Mr. HARRISON. There is no need for weighting in this because this is a hundred percent sample in the states in which we did this analysis.

Mr. JENNINGS. Are the characteristics of those 1600 school districts identical to the characteristics of the 4500 districts receives impact aid?

Mr. HARRISON. We have no way of knowing that. We looked at all the impact districts in the 1600 districts, but what there is in the other 3,000, approximately, we don't know about. We did not take our sample out of the 4500. We took states.

Mr. JENNINGS. Why did you choose those states?

Mr. HARRISON. They were the states that had readily available data to us because they are the 16 states that use the comparable district method of computing payment rates. They have to develop the data on property taxes and so forth in order to choose their own comparable districts. In the other states we would have to create our own data base and we didn't have time to do that.

Mr. JENNINGS. The states which take comparable groupings of school districts, if I understand it correctly, tend to be the wealthier states because those which are going to take the fifty percent state or national average tend to be the poorer states, is that correct? Therefore, your sample of these 16 states would be weighted more toward wealthier states than a representative sample of states in the country.

Mr. HARRISON. Included in our sample is the State of Oklahoma, for example. It happens that in the State of Oklahoma most of the school districts in that state actually used the minimum rate. Mr. JENNINGS. How many southern States did you have among the 16?

Mr. HARRISON. The closest to a southern school district is Oklahoma.

Mr. JENNINGS. Thank you.

Mr. KILDEE. The hearings will be recessed until tomorrow morning at 9:30.

(Whereupon, at 12:25 p.m., the subcommittee was recessed to reconvene at 9:30 a.m., the following day, Wednesday, June 22,

PART 5: IMPACT AID

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22, 1977

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ELEMENTARY, SECONDARY

AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION,
COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR,

Washington, D.C.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:00 a.m., in Room 2175, Rayburn House Office Building, the Hon. Carl D. Perkins (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Members present: Representatives Perkins, Mottl, Weiss, Heftel, Kildee and Quie.

Staff present: John F. Jennings, majority counsel; Nancy L. Kober, staff assistant; Christopher T. Cross, senior education consultant.

Chairman PERKINS. The committee will come to order.

This is our second day of hearings on the impact aid legislation, which to my way of thinking has worked wonderfully well throughout the country.

I am delighted to welcome before the committee today one of our outstanding colleagues in the Congress, the Honorable Bob Sikes, from the great State of Florida, who was here when I first came to Congress. I know of his tremendous support for this legislation all through the years.

At this time I am going to ask the entire panel to come around, but ask Congressman Sikes to speak first. The panel will be comprised of Dr. H. David Fish, President, Impacted Area Schools, accompanied by Mr. Lanston E. Eldred; Mr. Francis L. Paul, School Business Administrator, Ayer Public Schools, Ayer, Massachusetts; Mr. Wayne Paxson, Associate Superintendent, Bellevue Public Schools, Bellevue, Nebraska; Charles Akins, Superintendent, Hardin County Public Schools, Elizabethtown, Kentucky-I have known Charles a long time; he has done a great job-Mr. Sydney Williams, Newport School Department, Newport, Rhode Island; and Mr. Max Bruner, Jr., Superintendent of Schools, Okaloosa County, Florida.

I will ask the Congressman from Florida to come around to the table, make his statement, and then introduce the superintendent from his district who is accompanying him. We will let him make his statement. Then we will get back to the regular order of Dr. David Fish.

STATEMENT OF THE HON. ROBERT L. F. SIKES, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA

Mr. SIKES. Thank you. It is very kind of you. I appreciate this opportunity. I am always happy to appear before your committee and to state, as I have many times in the past, that we in the House are tremendously impressed with the great work that you do as chairman, and the great job that your committee does for education. You have certainly made a record that is outstanding; a record whose beneficial effects live long in the annals of sound educational programs.

Mr. Chairman, I have the happy privilege of presenting to you the school superintendent of my county, the Honorable Max Bruner, Jr., Superintendent of Schools in Okaloosa County, Florida. This is a particular privilege because I know so well what this outstanding leader has done for schools in my county and in my state.

I am happy to state that Max Brunner is a warm and close friend and my neighbor. I have watched him build the Okaloosa County school system to, a higher successful level of operations. There are few if any which excel our school system.

I can say too, I don't know anyone who has had a more difficult job to overcome. There has been a tremendous influx of students, a tremendous number who have been brought to our area because of Federal personnel associated with Eglin Air Force Base and other Federal programs. This fact has made his job much more difficult. The fact that so much of our county is owned by state and Federal governments has increased the problem.

Despite all the handicaps, he has built a very fine educational plant throughout Okaloosa county. He just doesn't quit when there is work to do. He is very highly respected throughout the state. I am pleased to have the privilege of of introducing my good friend, Superintendent Bruner.

Chairman PERKINS. Thank you very much.

Your prepared remarks, all of you, will be inserted in the record Go ahead, Mr. Bruner.

[The statement of Mr. Bruner follows:]

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STATEMENT OF THE SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, OKALOOSA COUNTY, FLORIDA,
MAX BRUNER, JR. BEFORE THE HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE ON ELEMENTARY, SECONDARY,
AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION, June 22, 1977

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to appear before your distinguished Subcommittee and being allowed to make this presentation concerning the funding of Public Law 874, specifically the category "B" students.

The School Board of Okaloosa County, Florida has, in my judgement, a unique problem with the amount of real property that can be taxed for educational revenue. The Eglin Air Force Base Reservation encompasses a vast number of total acres (approximately 45% of the total acres--see Attachment I, Okaloosa County Map) that are off the tax rolls and cannot be taxed for educational revenue. More specifically, the total county acreage is divided as follows:

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