Email Updates

About the EPS Benchmark

EPS stands for “Essential Programs and Services” and it refers to the spending benchmark the state establishes for each school district. That benchmark amount is developed using the EPS formula, which is a dizzyingly complex series of calculations designed to establish how much each Maine school district should be spending to give all its students the opportunity to achieve Maine’s Learning Results.

The story behind the development of the Essential Programs and Services model of school funding is too wearying to recount here, but the concept has its roots in a concern that the state was simply sending Maine’s school districts a certain amount of money each year without ever establishing how much money was actually needed for the districts to do their jobs. Some districts were awash in money while others struggled to get by, yet the state simply took a fixed amount of money – whatever was budgeted that year – and distributed it out to the districts with little regard for what these vast sums of taxpayer money were actually buying. Pressure thus began to mount for the state to adopt a more rational approach to school funding, one that was based in some way on what ought to be spent, and not simply what was being spent.

After years of development, the state finally implemented the EPS funding system for the 2004-2005 school year and has used it ever since. That funding process begins each year with the Department feeding mounds of data about each district into the EPS formula. For instance, the state takes a look at how many low-income students are in a district or how many students have identified learning disabilities. Using this data, the EPS formula then generates a number which the state establishes as its funding benchmark for each district for the year.

The second part of the funding process is for the state to take the EPS benchmark amount and feed that number into a second formula based on property tax valuations. Simply put, the more property tax wealth a district has, the less state money it gets, regardless of what the EPS formula comes up with.

So the amount of money a district receives from the state is based on two variables. One is what the state’s EPS formula says the district should be spending, and the second is what the state’s property valuation data says the district is capable of paying for on its own.

As might be expected, there is scarcely a school district in the state that is happy with this state of affairs. The vast majority of school districts are spending far more than the state’s EPS benchmark says they should, which has the effect of shifting the school funding burden back to the districts. This has led groups like the Maine School Management Association to criticize EPS and call for it to be reworked.

Still, the EPS formula, even with its flaws, provides education policymakers and the public with something they did not have prior to its development and implementation, which is a benchmark for education spending based on real data.

Is your district one of the many that is spending more than the state’s EPS benchmark says it should? To find out, take a look at the school district spending data available here on the GreatSchoolsforME.org website.

For more on the EPS funding system, take a look at this article about the thinking behind the EPS system, and visit this site, which contains a wealth of data and commentary about EPS. For those who are more ambitious, there is also the state’s own EPS website, which, though far less user friendly, has plenty of information about EPS as well.

 

The EPS Benchmark and GreatSchoolsforMe.org

The school district spending data available on the GreatSchoolsforMe.org website includes the EPS benchmark for each district. The terminology used in this section is as follows:

The Local Property Taxes - EPS Benchmark is the amount the state says the district should raise locally through property taxes. It is the required local share.

The Local Property Taxes - Actual amount is what the local school district actually did raise though property taxes.

The Over/Under EPS Benchmark amount is the amount by which the local district either exceeded or fell short of the state's EPS benchmark.

Similarly, Total Funding - EPS Benchmark is the total amount, both state and local, that the state says is should cost the district to give all of its students to opportunity to achieve the state's learning results.

The Total Funding - Actual amount is the total amount, both state and local, that the district actually raised.

Do I have school choice options?