Mr. STORMER. This has been a debate between the Office of Education and the Office of the Comptroller General and the Department as to whether or not we could arbitrarily set a date. We arbitrarily had set a date of July 1, 1975, the date of the Comptroller General's opinion. We considered that as the beginning date but, according to counsel and GAO, we did not have the authority to set that arbitrary date and we must go back to the date of authorization.

Mr. QUIE. I am glad you did.

Chairman PERKINS. I should have recognized Dr. William Duncan, Supervising Principal of Highland Falls for his testimony. Without objection, your prepared statement will be inserted in the record.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Duncan follows:]

HIGHLAND FALLS-FORT MONTGOMERY

CENTRAL SCHOOL DISTRICT

HIGHLAND FALLS, NEW YORK 10928

DR. WILLIAM F. DUNCAN, SUPERVISING PRINCIPAL

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ELEMENTARY, SECONDARY,

AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 1977

THE UNCHANGING IMPACT

The shaded portion

A glance at the map on the facing page shows very clearly the extent of the impact of the United States Military Academy at West Point on the Highland Falls-Fort Montgomery Central School District. represents the 1700 acres of land left on the tax roll out of the 21,000 acres total land area of the district. So small is the resulting tax base that even after a County-wide reassessment, which advanced all properties to market value, our school district has the lowest taxable wealth per student of the 55 districts in the entire Mid-Hudson Area. This is indeed

more noteworthy in light of the fact that Orange County was the only one of the 5 or 6 counties involved that conducted the reappraisal.

The burden of the Federal presence on the school district is plainly both substantial and permanent. Our citizens are very much aware of it for they are paying school taxes and many of them had their lands and homes taken from them. Each year as we present the school budget to the public, the same questions are asked: "Why can't you tell us for certain how much Impact Aid we're going to get next year?" "Why can't you get a permanent law so you don't have to fight about this every year?" the government recognize the problems that it created?"

"Doesn't

Finally, this year, one of our townspeople rather waggishly asserted, "The only real solution is to sell what's left to the Federal Government and let THEM finance the schools."

THE CONTINUING ATTACK ON THE "B" STUDENT

If the federal property were on the tax rolls, there is no question but that Highland Falls would be in a similar position to one of our neighboring school districts which has two large electric generating plants located within its borders. The taxable wealth per student of that district is 5 times that

of ours, and the major part of the school tax is gained from the commercial

property.

The fact that the "B" students' parents pay local school taxes on their homes is exactly the reason that the payment rate for "B" students was originally set at one-half that of the "A" student. The taxes ordinarily paid by the commercial property, such as the aforementioned electric generating plants, are not paid by the federal installation and it is this lost tax that is being paid in behalf of the "B" student.

Indeed if one really contrasts the "B" type of payment system with the ordinary school district financial system it is the "B" system which emerges es the fairer of the two because the district that has the burden of the

children to educate is the district that receives the payment. In the ordinary system, school district boundary lines were drawn in an arbitrary manner, resulting in the creation of some artificially rich districts and some artificially poor ones, depending upon the presence or absence of commercial properties to share the tax burden. This system is coming under more and more attack through the courts because of the educational inequalities that such a system produces.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Chairman and the Members of the Committee for permitting me to come before them and present this material. I trust that it will be helpful in your deliberations.

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM F. DUNCAN

Dr. DUNCAN. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to come here and present this testimony.

The Highland Falls School System is not as huge in terms of student population as others who have presented testimony here. this morning. We have about 1500 students. Fifty percent of them are federally-connected. We have 250 A students in our high school. We have no elementary A students because there is a Section 6 school operating on the West Point grounds.

Our impact aid funds amount to about 20 percent of our budget. Basically our problem is really not only the students, but more importantly the fact that we have 7 percent of our land left to us on the tax rolls.

The points I would like to make are only two. One, that this impact on our school district is continuing, it has been in existence for many, many years, and it is not going to change. Our citizens are very much aware of the impact of the Federal installation on

our school system and they know it is not going to change. They can't understand why we have to continue the struggle every year over the authorization and funding of this law when it is so evident to them that they are very heavily impacted. Indeed, as I mentioned in my report, one of our citizens suggested that the best thing we could do was to sell the land we have left to the Federal government so the Federal government would have to finance the schools, the water, the sewage and all the other community services.

The other point I would like to make has to do with the B students. I believe their funding is necessary. If we look at the amount of tax revenue that would be generated by this land updating its value to present times, I am sure that we would be one of the wealthiest districts probably in the United States if this land were on the tax rolls. The B student is a very significant part of this because, as all of these other gentlemen have also stated, they pay no taxes; they have many tax-free benefits available to them on post and our school district has the burden of educating their children.

I think the B student funding is one of the fairest means of educational finance because there are many districts throughout the United States which were created artificially rich by virtue of property that could be used for business or industry within their boundaries and others which were created artificially poor.

The B student funding at least makes the payment to the school district that has the children. So, where the expense is needed the funds are provided. Those are the two points I would like to make. Thank you very much for your attention.

Mr. QUIE. Could you tell me, Dr. Duncan, how many are in the Section 6 school and how many are outside of that?

Dr. DUNCAN. There are approximately 900 children in the Section 6 school. We have a total of 1500 students in our school district outside of the Section 6.

If I may make another point with respect to the A funding, we are in a very strange situation because our high school is bigger than our elementary population because we only receive the A students from West point at a high school level so it is not possible for us to become a super-aid district since we do not have 25 percent of the total student population as A students. Yet they amount to 30 percent of our high school enrollment. So we have a very serious impaction of A students at the high school level, but are limited to 90 percent of the funding because of that particular part of the law. Mr. QUIE. The West Point students then go through 9th grade in the Section 6?

Mr. DUNCAN. They stop at 8th grade and we have them 9th through 12th.

Mr. QUIE. Why don't you turn over the high school students to the federal government under Section 6?

Dr. DUNCAN. We would like to do that. We have educated their high school students for I guess as long as they have been having high school students at West Point. When they built the Section 6 schools they stopped it at the 8th grade. At this point I think the numbers are probably economically not realistic for the Federal government to build a high school at West Point and educate them since there would be but 250 students involved.