Full Citation
Title: An ACS-Based Regional Cost Adjustment for the State of Washington
Citation Type: Miscellaneous
Publication Year: 2012
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Abstract: A regional cost index measures how much more or less it costs each school district to recruit and retain equivalent school personnel. School finance formulas in many statesincluding Alaska, Colorado, Florida, New York, Texas and Wyominguse regional cost indices to direct additional resources to school districts with higher labor costs, so that all districts can afford to hire comparable personnel. There are many strategies that can be used to estimate a regional cost index. This report presents a comparable wage index (CWI) for the state of Washington. The index is based on an analysis of data from the American Community Survey (ACS). The ACS, which is conducted annually by the U.S. Census Bureau, has replaced the decennial census as the primary source of demographic information about the U.S. population. The ACS CWI measures the extent to which the demographically and occupationally-adjusted earnings of non-educators differ from one part of Washington to another. As such, the ACS CWI offers a reliable measure of regional differences in the cost of hiring school district personnel. The ACS CWI indicates that labor costs are above the pupil-weighted state average in the Seattle and Tacoma metropolitan areas, and below the state average in all other parts of the state. The large differences in prevailing wage levels indicated by the ACS CWI mean that it costs more to operate a school district in Seattle and Tacoma than it does to operate a school district in Clarkston or Walla Walla. The ACS CWI indicates that in order to equalize school district resources, the base salary allocations for school districts in Seattle should be 9 percent higher than the state average, and the base salary allocations for school districts in non-metropolitan eastern Washington should be 14 percent lower than the state average.
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Authors: Taylor, Lori
Publisher: Compensation Technical Working Group
Data Collections: IPUMS USA
Topics: Education
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