Archived Information
School Finance: Statistical Comparisons
FY05 Per Pupil Expenditures
Explanatory Notes
Data Source and Timing
Per pupil expenditures for Fiscal Year 2005 (the 2004-2005 school year) were calculated from information provided on each district's End of Year Pupil and Financial Report (EOYPFR). That document is a comprehensive report of a district's revenues, expenditures, enrollment, and instructional staff during FY05.
Districts are required to hire auditing firms to verify the accuracy of the data on the EOYPFR. In addition, the Massachusetts Department of Education (DOE) conducts a careful review of the data in the months following the report's submission. If any changes in the submitted numbers are necessary, districts file amendments.
FY05 ended on June 30, 2005. Districts submitted the FY05 EOYPFR in the fall of 2005. Preliminary per pupil expenditures were published in the spring and updated periodically to include districts whose data was not ready for the original release. Final FY05 per pupil expenditures should be available in the summer or fall of 2006; the final figures will reflect all amendments received from districts.
Two Perspectives on School Spending
Not all of a city or town's resident public school-children are educated in local schools. They may attend other school districts through the school choice or other tuition programs. They may be enrolled in charter schools, in private special education day or residential schools, or in other settings. These pupils certainly are included in a school district's expenditures. Yet when the public asks how much its schools are spending, it frequently has in mind what is occurring in a district's own local schools. Therefore, it has been common practice to present per pupil expenditures from both perspectives.
DOE's Per Pupil Expenditures include all pupils enrolled in local schools, even non-residents who attend on a tuitioned-in basis. This measure does not count children being educated outside the district. Tuition, regional district spending, and other payments for out-of district pupils are not factored in.
Net School Spending is the measure used to determine whether districts have met their Chapter 70 spending requirements since FY94. It shows all of the expenditures made for resident pupils, regardless of whether they are enrolled in the district or elsewhere. It "nets" out any pupils coming in to the district and any tuition revenues associated with them. Net school spending trends can be found in the Chapter 70 profiles on the Department's school finance web site at:
http://finance1.doe.mass.edu/schfin/Chapter70/profile.aspx
Measuring Enrollment: The Concept of Full-Time Equivalent Average Membership
The per pupil spending calculations published here compare spending, which occurs throughout the school year, to the average number of pupils, which normally fluctuates throughout the school year. The enrollment statistic used is called "full-time equivalent average membership."
Full-time equivalency refers to the percentage of time that students are enrolled in various programs during the school year. A pupil who arrived at a school on November 1st and was still enrolled at the end of the year, for example, would be assigned full-time equivalency of somewhere in the range of eight-tenths.
Expenditures: What Is Included And What Is Not Included
Categories of spending that comprise Per Pupil Expenditures are listed below.
| | Per Pupil Expenditures |
| Included |
Administration
Instruction
Pupil Services
Transportation
Maintenance
Employee Benefits
Rentals
Short-Term Interest (non-BAN's)
Crossing Guards
Municipal Indirect Costs *
Transportation to Day/Residential
Expenditures from Tuition Revolving Accounts (such as school choice)
* Municipal Indirect Costs included in these measures are reported separately on the EOYPFR, in areas such as administration, employee benefits, educational media, health services, transportation, maintenance, retirement programs, insurance, rentals, and short-term interest. These outlays are not in a city or town's school committee budget, but they do contribute to the cost of running the district's schools.
|
| Not Included |
Civic Activities
Recreation
Health Programs, Non-Public Schools
Transportation to Non-Public Schools
Purchase of Land and Buildings
Capital Expenditures
Debt Service
Adult Ed and Evening Programs
Summer School
Short Term Interest (BAN's)
Spending From State Grants
Spending From Federal Grants
Spending From Private Grants, Gifts
Spending From Athletic Funds
Spending From School Lunch Funds
Spending By Third Parties
Town Share of Regional District Expenditures
Tuition to Massachusetts Schools *
School Choice and Charter Tuition
Tuition to Out-of-State Schools
Tuition to Non-Public Schools
* For the special education cost per pupil, tuition for special education pupils at collaboratives and other Massachusetts districts or charter schools is included. However, for the total day program cost, these tuitions are excluded.
|
Special Education Expenditures Per Pupil
The special education per pupil expenditures shown here differ in concept between in-district and out-of-district prototypes. For the in-district prototypes (which are described in the special education table description), per pupil expenditures are composites of the time spent by special education pupils in both their regular and special education programs.
The percentage of time in special education is derived by comparing the full-time equivalency in special education to the number of pupils served. Subtraction from 100 percent yields the percentage of time spent in regular education.
For example, the Massachusetts average for in-district special education students in FY05 was $14,643. Statewide FTE's in those prototypes amounted to 38.87 percent of the number of pupils served; thus regular education was said to comprise 61.13 percent of those pupils' time. Special education expenditures amounted to $10,106 per pupil. Sixty-one percent of the regular education cost per pupil of $7,421 equals $4,537. Adding $10,106 to $4,537 equals the combined $14,643 total cost per pupil in FY05, for special education pupils in those prototypes.
There is no comparable regular education calculation for the day school and residential school out-of-district prototypes. In those settings, students are counted as full-time special education pupils.
Related data showing trends in direct special education spending as a percentage of total school budgets can be viewed at:
http://finance1.doe.mass.edu/schfin/sped/sped_exp_budget.aspx
School District Coding Structure
The Department of Education assigns a three-digit Local Education Agency (LEA) code to each of the 437 school districts in the Commonwealth.
| LEA Codes | Number of
Districts | Description |
| 1-351 | 351 |
Codes 1 to 351 are assigned to cities and towns in the Commonwealth. Of these, 243 operate an instructional program, while 108 belong to regional school districts or make tuitioning agreements to send local pupils to schools in neighboring districts. Only the operating districts are shown in this per pupil expenditure release.
|
| 352 | 1 |
Devens is a former army base, which is an independent school district that tuitions its pupils to neighboring towns.
|
| 406 | 1 |
Northampton-Smith is an independent vocational school district.
|
| 600-780 | 55 |
Codes 600 to 780 are assigned to the 55 regional academic districts which instruct children from two or more towns. Some of these districts operate programs in all grades and others operate only high schools.
|
| 800-885 | 26 |
Codes 800 to 885 are assigned to the 26 regional
|
| 900-915 | 3 |
There are three agricultural high schools in the Commonwealth.
|
| Total | 437 | |
In FY05 there were 48 charter schools open in Massachusetts. Charter schools are public schools but do not submit End of Year Pupil and Financial Reports. Their per pupil expenditures are therefore not included in the numbers shown in this release.
Contacts
Questions and comments can be addressed to any of the following School Finance staff:
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State Government · State Services 
