Summary: In accordance with a legislative requirement, GAO reviewed the methods the Department of Defense (DOD) uses to operate and fund its dependents' schools to: (1) determine the most suitable means of funding those schools; and (2) identify legal, jurisdictional, and other impediments to changing the schools' funding and operating methods.
GAO noted that DOD uses three methods to educate military dependents living on military installations, including: (1) the local operation alternative, under which funding comes from federal, state, and local governments; (2) the contract operation alternative, which allows DOD to contract with local school districts and totally fund the students' education; and (3) the coterminous operation, under which dependents' schools operate as local school districts and the Department of Education and the state share the funding. GAO found that coterminous operation was the best alternative because it would save the federal government between $44 and $88 million and would increase states' education budgets by less than one-half of 1 percent. GAO noted that, at each installation, DOD and the state education agency: (1) should negotiate the change in school funding and operating methods; (2) might arrive at an alternative more appropriate than coterminous operation; and (3) should consider and resolve employee equity issues, as well as jurisdictional and other impediments. GAO also found that: (1) transferring military dependents' schools to local school districts or establishing new coterminous districts would cause an annual reallocation of impact aid funds from other impacted districts; and (2) under the coterminous method, military school districts would receive more funds because states cannot consider federal impact aid payments when determining their funding of local school districts.
