Archived Information

School Finance: Statistical Comparisons

FY95 Per Pupil Expenditures

April, 1997

I am pleased to issue our annual publication 1994-1995 Per Pupil Expenditures.

All data used to calculate these expenditures were taken from the 1994-1995 Pupil and Financial End of Year Reports submitted to the Department of Education by each city, town, and regional school district in September, 1995. In order to ensure the greatest degree of accuracy of these reports, school districts were allowed until June 1, 1996 to submit corrections to their spending and enrollment figures.

Besides showing comparative costs for all of the states public school districts, the report also describes the various educational programs and the components of these comparative statistics.

In the two years since the passage of the Education Reform Law, the integrated per pupil cost has increased by 7.6 percent.

In the two years prior to the passage of the Education Reform Act (FY'92 and 93) the increase in per pupil spending was 1.0 percent.

In the last section of this report, we have included each district's Foundation Budget spending in FY'95. If this information proves useful, we will prepare comparative data for FY'94, 95 and 96.

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

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

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Introduction
• Integrated Operating Costs
• Summary of All Day Programs
• Regular Day Programs
• Special Education Programs
• Bilingual Programs
• FoundationComparisons
• comprehensive per pupil expenditure data.

1. INTRODUCTION

   The 1994-1995 per pupil exexpenditures 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
   • Health
   • Instructional
   • Plant Maintenance
   • Student Body Activities
   • Transportation

   Operating costs are paid from funds appropriated by the local districts from tax revenues, state aid, federal impact aid and school choice revenues.

   FULL TIME EQUIVALENCY (FTE) MEMBERSHIP

   All pupils are reported on a full-time equivalency (fte) basis 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 fulltime 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 436 school districts in Massachusetts as follows:

   Codes 1 to 351 are assigned to cities and towns in the Commonwealth. Of these, 245 operate some instructional program, while 106 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-four 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 or elementary 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.

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2. INTEGRATED OPERATING COSTS

   Because of the variety of the school district organizations, it is often difficult to compare per-pupil expenditures. In order to standardize costs among districts, the Department of Education calculates an "integrated per pupil costs" for each of the 351 cities and towns in Massachusetts. These figures represent the average cost of education for all children residing in a community, regardless of the district where they attend school. In addition to a local district's current operating cost, a portion of a member regional school district's cost are included in the local district's total expenditures. Tuition paid to other schools is also part of the integrated cost.

   The total integrated cost is divided by a town's "net average membership". This figure is the sum of pupils in local schools, other public school districts and in special needs day and residential schools.

   The following graph compares the integrated cost in FY'93, the tear prior to the passage of Education Reform to the FY'95 school year.

   

   Integrated Operating Costs: Seven Year Comparison

   YEAR	COSTS	ANNUAL % CHANGE	PUPILS	ANNUAL % CHANGE	PER PUPIL COST	ANNUAL % CHANGE
   FY89	3,865,617,866	9.40%	826,473.0	-0.40%	4,677	9.80%
   FY90	4,100,595,530	6.10%	824,773.6	-0.20%	4,972	6.30%
   FY91	4,239,581,293	3.39%	834,304.1	1.16%	5,082	2.21%
   FY92	4,254,852,026	0.36%	845,230.6	1.31%	5,034	-0.94%
   FY93	4,404,139,022	3.51%	858,431.1	1.56%	5,130	1.92%
   FY94	4,691,400,547	6.52%	877,273.8	2.20%	5,348	4.23%
   FY95	4,975,564,849	6.06%	900,770.4	2.68%	5,524	3.29%
   Change 89-95		28.71%		8.99%		18.10%

3. SPECIAL EDUCATION PROGRAMS

   All districts must provide special instructional services to pupils whose educational needs cannot be satisfied in a regular day program. Pupils and expenditures fall into the following eight "program prototypes."

   The expenditures and enrollments in the first four prototypes are combined in each school district's End of Year Pupil and Financial Report and the per pupil expenditure published here is a composite of all four.

   502.1 Modified In this prototype, children receive special instruction in their regular classroom.

   502.2 Integrated Some children leave the regular classroom for their special instruction. In this prototype, the children receive these services for no more than 25% of the school week.

   502.3 25%-60% Like the integrated prototype, this program requires children with special needs to spend part of the school week (from 25%-60%) outside the regular classroom.

   502.4 Substantially Separate This prototype is reserved for special need pupils who must spend almost the whole school week in a classroom taught by a special teacher.

   502.5 Day School Certain children attend private day schools for special needs pupils and their home school district is responsible for paying the tuition.

   502.6 Residential This prototype describes private special needs schools where children live and attend class. As in the day school prototype, the home school districts pay the tuition.

   502.7 Home or Hospital When pupils are sick at home or in the hospital, the school district assigns a tutor to give them private instruction.

   502.8 Pre-School This prototype is designed for three-and four year-olds with special needs.

   In addition to the eight prototypes, there are two other categories of special education costs.

   Screening describes the identification of children whose needs should be evaluated.

   Evaluation is the assessment of a child's special needs and the development of an individual plan in one of the eight program prototypes.

   The 1994-1995 statewide average per pupil expenditure for special needs programs is $8,241.

4. TRANSITIONAL BILINGUAL PROGRAMS

   School districts provide programs under Chapter 71A for children who do not understand English well enough to perform in the regular classroom. These pupils are taught in their native language in all the regular subjects and receive extra instruction in English.

   The per pupil expenditures and the grades in operation are published for the fifty-seven school districts that provide bilingual programs. These costs reflect the time spent in bilingual education only.

   The 1994-1995 statewide average per pupil expenditure for transitional bilingual programs is $5,994, an increase of $455 from school year 1993-1994.

5. FOUNDATION BUDGET SPENDING PER PUPIL

   The Education Reform Act of 1993 completely changed the Chapter 70 state aid formula. Since FY94, the act has defined an annual "foundation" spending goal and minimum spending requirement for each district. The following pages provide each school district's FY95 foundation budget, required spending and actual spending-- all in per pupil terms. These figures are included in order to ensure that officials and other users of this booklet do not rely upon the preceding per pupil expenditure tables to assess where a district stands relative to the foundation.

   The foundation budget itself is not a measure of actual expenditures. Rather, it is a statistical estimate of how much a district would need to spend in order for the children there to receive an adequate education. It arrives at this estimate by looking at the numbers of children in various grade levels and programs, and applying statutorily defined costs associated with these factors. The foundation per pupil differs for each district, because of the specific mix of grade levels and programs of the students residing there.

   The required and actual spending per pupil figures in the Foundation Budget report represent the "net school spending" measure defined in Chapter 70. Transportation, debt service, and a number of other categories are excluded. The FY95 required amount is the minimum that the district is allowed to spend in the categories comprising net school spending. In FY95, 201 out of 352 districts spent more than this required level.

   An important difference between the per pupil expenditure tables and the foundation table concerns the definition of enrollment. The per pupil expenditure tables rely upon average membership across the entire FY95 school year. The FY95 foundation per pupil table relies upon October 1993 headcounts which are one year out of date. This is an unavoidable result of the need to incorporate Chapter 70 estimates into the state budget process before a fiscal year even begins (and thus before enrollment is known). The foundation per pupil figures are also less perfect measures than the per pupil expenditure tables, because headcounts fail to account for changes in enrollments and programs that occur during the school year.