Information for Tennessee Counties
Tennessee’s original county-level fiscal capacity model was developed by TACIR and adopted by the State Board of Education to fulfill the requirement of the Education Improvement Act to equalize funding for the Basic Education Program (BEP). The BEP is the primary source of state funds for public schools in Tennessee. The TACIR model was used from the inception of the Basic Education Program funding formula in 1992 through 2007. Since 2008, the TACIR model has been used in conjunction with the CBER model, an arithmetic tax capacity model produced by the Center for Business and Economic Research (CBER) at the University of Tennessee. The stated intent of the administration at the time was for the weight of each measure to shift toward CBER annually until its calculation was the only one used, but the percentages have remained at 50/50. The Department of Education has not announced an official transition schedule for future fiscal years.
The purpose of the TACIR model is to ensure that the burden of funding schools is roughly equal across the state given different local tax bases and other factors related to the ability to raise money for education. The TACIR model estimates the per pupil dollar amount that each county area can afford to pay to fund education. The information presented here describes the TACIR model and presents the results for each county, including trends over time and the factors that go into the model.