In a study of the critical factors affecting local decision making on school fiscal policy, socioeconomic factors, educational leadership, and community power structure were related to one another and to local financial effort in relation to ability. The study included 122 school districts of 20,000 population and above located in the states of Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, and Illinois. Twenty-four districts (three highand three low effort districts from each state) were selected for intensive study. The 12 major hypotheses tested dealt with consistency of local school fiscal policy, the relationship of socioeconomic factors and kinds of community power structures to effort, and the characteristics of community leaders and voter behavior in competitive and noncompetitive power structures. Principal findings included: (1) Most school districts followed consistently high or low effort patterns throughout the 18 years studied, (2) there was no consistent relationship between socioeconomic factors and financial effort, (3) low financial effort districts tended to have noncompetitive power structures, and (4) low effort, noncompetitive districts tended to have closed social systems with politically less active voters. (Author/JK)