These pieces of information were part of stipulations of both sides. Dr. Kern Alexander was the only witness of the day. He has been the president of two colleges, has worked for the federal Department of Education , has been the education budget analyst for the Governor of Florida, a Distinguished University Professor, has been the author of countless articles and monographs on school finance and equity and the author of a number of books on school finance and school finance equity. According to Dr. Alexander you have to have fiscal capacity in order to produce wealth and consequently revenues. The fiscal capacity is then turned into revenues through taxation.
Personal income is the flow of capital.
There is such as wide variance in local assessments in relationship to market value that the system is irrational. Judge Pellegrini pointed out that assessments are mitigated by the number of mills that are placed on the assessment and therefore it is a sliding scale. Dr. Alexander pointed out that the relative wealth of an area is what it is and that the tax effort is a function of how much total local tax is exacted from the community. He then went on to explain a number of charts relating to tax effort. He pointed out that the wealthiest districts in the state had a .01917 tax effort, while the poorest had .02751, while the state average was .02412.