Archived Information

School Finance: Statistical Comparisons

FY94 Per Pupil Expenditures

December, 1995

I am pleased to issue our annual publication 1993-1994 Per Pupil Expenditures.

All data used to calculate these expenditures were taken from the 1993-1994 Pupil-Financial End of Year Report submitted to the Department of Education by each city, town and regional school district in September, 1994. In order to ensure the greatest degree of accuracy of these reports, school districts were allowed until June 1, 1995 to submit corrections to their spending and enrollment figures.

Besides showing comparative costs for all of the state's public school districts, the booklet also describes the various educational programs and the components of these comparative statistics. Because this is the first year of expenditure reporting under Education Reform, integrated operating costs are compared to the fiscal year 1993 integrated operating costs. This data shows an increase in pupil spending under Education Reform by over 4.2%.

The fiscal year 1995 expenditure report will also include comparisons to the foundation budget spending categories.

If you have any questions about the booklet, please contact:

Massachusetts Department of Education
School Finance Services
350 Main Street
Malden, MA 02148
(617) 338-3300, ext. 553

Sincerely,

Robert V. Antonucci
Commissioner of Education

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Introduction
• Integrated Operating Costs
• Summary of All Day Programs
• Regular Day Programs
• Special Education Programs
• Bilingual Programs
• Occupational Day Programs

INTRODUCTION

The 1993-1994 per pupil expenditures have been calculated from information in each district's End of Year Pupil and Financial Report. Districts report pupil memberships and expenditures in any of the regular, special, bilingual and occupational education programs offered to school children. Within each of these four programs, per pupil expenditures are further categorized by grade level, prototype or program.

OPERATING COSTS

Per pupil expenditures are computed by dividing a district's operating costs by the average pupil membership. The following categories of expenditures are included in operating costs:

• Administration
• Athletics
• Attendance
• Fixed Charges
• Food
• Guidance
• Health
• Instructional Supervision
• Libraries, Audio-Visual & Ed TV
• Plant Maintenance
• Principals
• Psychologists
• Student Body Activities
• Teaching
• Textbooks
• Transportation

Operating costs are paid from funds appropriated by the local districts from tax revenues and state aid.

FULL TIME EQUIVALENCY (FTE) MEMBERSHIP

All pupils are reported on a full-time equivalency basis (fte) which takes into account two factors:

1. pupils are reported on an average basis, e.g. a child who was enrolled in school for only half the year would be reported as 0.5 fte;

2. pupils are reported in each of the school programs where they are taught, e.g. a child who spends half the school day in the regular program and the other half in the special needs program would be reported as 0.5 fte in both.

   When expenditures and pupils are reported in specific categories, the calculated per pupil expenditure can be quite high because the pupils are reported on a full-time equivalency basis. For example for a special needs pre-school program, a district may report $1,000 for one child's program. If the district reports that this child spends 10% of the school day in this program, the child's full-time equivalency membership would be 0.10 To compute the per pupil expenditure, the Department of Education divides the total costs by the total fte membership. In this example, the total cost of $1,000 would be divided by the fte membership of 0.1 (10%). The result would be $10,000. Such high average costs usually denotes a specific school program with a very low membership.

SCHOOL DISTRICT CODES

The Department of Education assigns a three digit descriptive to each of the 437 school districts in Massachusetts as follows:

Codes 1 to 351 are assigned to cities and towns in the Commonwealth. Of these, 264 operate some instructional program, while eighty-seven are either members of fully-organized regional school districts or make agreements to send local pupils to schools in neighboring districts.

Codes in the 400 series are assigned to independent districts under the control of boards of trustees.

Codes in the 600 and 700 series are assigned to the fifty-five 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.

Codes in the 800 series are assigned to the twenty-six regional vocational districts which provide occupational instruction to high school pupils from two or more cities and towns.

Codes in the 900 series are assigned to agricultural schools for secondary pupils operated by three counties.