Rhode Island, which has long depended heavily on local property taxes to pay for schools, has become even more reliant on those taxes over the past decade, and now ranks third highest in the country.

Nationally, local property taxes covered 43.3 percent of school costs in 2006, compared with 60.2 percent in Rhode Island, according to a report released today by the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council, a business-backed public policy group. The annual statistical study, How Rhode Island Schools Compare, uses data from the National Education Association, a national teachers union. This year, the council compared information from 1996 to 2006.

RIPEC’s analysis found that a decade ago, Rhode Island ranked 14th highest in its dependence on local property taxes to finance schools. By last year, the state had jumped to third. Only Nevada and Illinois are more dependent on local property taxes.

“The numbers are very dramatic,” said Gary Sasse, RIPEC’s executive director. “The Northeast states are already high property-tax states anyway, so for us to jump ahead to third highest is dramatic.”

Massachusetts, in contrast, relied less on local property taxes, falling from 6th in 1996 to 12th in 2006. Connecticut went up slightly, from ninth to seventh.

Rhode Island, like Massachusetts and Connecticut, continues to be a high-spending state, both in per-pupil costs and in teacher salaries.

The state ranks ninth in the country in per-student spending, $11,089 a year, about a 52-percent increase between 1996 and 2006. The national average is $9,022 a year — a 58-percent increase over the past decade.

Connecticut ranked third in per-pupil spending at $12,336, and Massachusetts ranked fifth, at $12,276 a year. Vermont and Maine were fourth and eighth, respectively. Out of the New England states, only New Hampshire, in 11th place, ranked below Rhode Island, spending $10,206 a year per student.

Sasse said he wants lawmakers and education officials to consider consolidating the state’s 36 districts into fewer entities and reorganize transportation, school construction, teacher health care and other high expenses to reduce spending.

Rhode Island ranked eighth nationally in teacher salaries, paying teachers an average of $54,730 — a 31-percent increase over the past decade. Connecticut came in first, with an average teacher salary of $59,499 a year — an 18-percent increase since 1996, and Massachusetts ranked seventh, with $56,587, a 34-percent increase since 1996.

Vermont ranked 19th in teacher salaries, followed by New Hampshire at 23rd and Maine at 40th.

Competition from neighboring states keeps teacher salaries high, Sasse said.

MANY OTHER STATE governments provide a bigger chunk of the financing for public schools — 57 percent compared with 40 percent in Rhode Island — through a variety of taxes and fees or a statewide school financing formula.

Rhode Island, however, looks to local cities and towns to pay the lion’s share of school costs. The General Assembly also allocates millions to local schools in the annual state budget, usually increasing its share by about 3 percent a year.

However in June, in part because of strained state finances and in part to send a message to communities to reconsider and rein in school spending, lawmakers voted to “level fund” schools, a decision that left several cash-strapped urban districts in the red. Providence, for example, did not receive $6 million in state aid that school administrators were counting on.

Senate Bill 3050, which was passed last year and which caps the amount municipalities can raise through property taxes to pay for schools and services such as police and fire, has further pressured districts to curb spending.

Many city and town officials, state lawmakers and school committees have been clamoring for a “predictable and fair” financing formula. Two years ago, the General Assembly established a joint committee to gather information and issue reports. However, after the committee held a series of hearings and made presentations this spring, the proposal was shelved. Lawmakers said they wanted a better understanding of how money is being spent on public education before they develop a new formula, and said they would assign aides and researchers to the task this fall.

“All these numbers and trends just heighten the need and the urgency of having a discussion about a predictable school funding formula,” Sasse said. “We need to look at what other states are doing and we need to acknowledge we have a very inefficient system and we need to reexamine governance.”

jjordan@projo.com