State of Arizona
State's spending by operational area
Every year, school districts must decide where to allocate their monies. This pie chart shows how, as a State, Arizona’s public school districts collectively spent their funding by operational area, including the percentage they spent in the classroom and specifically on instruction.
We have monitored instructional spending since FY 2001. Below are highlights from the State’s instructional spending trend showing the most recent year-to-year change and the years districts collectively spent the highest and lowest percentages on instruction.
Instructional spending percentage highlights (FYs 2001-2022)
Reviewing these instructional spending percentage highlights can provide insight into short-term (year-to-year comparison) and long-term (highest and lowest comparison) State-wide trends of districts’ allocation of monies to instruction. Depending on how much districts spend in total, even small changes in the percentage spent on instruction can equate to large changes in the State-wide actual dollars the districts spent.Prior fiscal year
FY 2021
Current fiscal year
FY 2022
Highest fiscal year
FY 2004
Lowest fiscal year
FY 2016
Why monitor school district spending?
Beginning with the FY 2016 budget, the K-12 education budget reconciliation bills have included the following wording each year:
“The governor and the legislature intend that school districts increase the total percentage of classroom spending over the previous year’s percentages in the combined categories of instruction, student support, and instructional support as prescribed by the auditor general.”
The bar chart below, "Percentage point change in spending by area," shows how the percentage of school districts’ spending on each area has changed from the prior fiscal year and 5 fiscal years ago, including the total change for classroom spending. Most school district funding is based on the number of students attending, and districts can choose how to spend most funding, so every decision a school district makes to spend on one operational area directly impacts its ability to spend on another. For example, if a district has higher spending in plant operations, it will have fewer dollars to spend on instruction.
To put the spending percentages in context, it can also be helpful to review per student spending in dollars. For example, a district’s overall spending might increase, but its percentage spent on an operational area may decrease if the dollars per student spent on that area stay the same or even increase.
We have also included the FY 2020 national spending percentages and per student spending averages, which are the most recently available, to compare to the corresponding year of Arizona spending.
Percentage point change in spending by area
Per student spending by area and national comparisons
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| Classroom spending | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Instruction | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Student support | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Nonclassroom spending | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Administration | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Plant operations | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Food service | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Transportation | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Nonclassroom spending by category
In reviewing State-wide nonclassroom spending in more detail, spending on some areas, like administration, is heavily driven by a single category of costs whereas spending on others, like food service, is more evenly distributed across different categories.Administration spending
Plant operations spending
Food service spending
Transportation spending
Operational efficiency measures
FYs 2020 through 2022
In addition to monitoring spending on a percentage and per student basis, calculating performance measures at the State level and monitoring them over multiple years can also identify trends in school district operations that are being seen State-wide, such as changes in students attending, meals served, and transportation miles driven and riders transported. State-wide performance measures also provide benchmarks districts can use to compare and track their efficiency.| Operational area | Measure | FY 2020 | FY 2021 | FY 2022 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Administration
|
Spending per student | $936 | $1,041 | $1,088 |
| Students per administrative position | 65 | 63 | 63 | |
|
Plant operations
|
Spending per square foot | $6.55 | $6.84 | $7.21 |
| Square footage per student | 160 ft2 | 171 ft2 | 167 ft2 | |
|
Food service
|
Spending per meal | $3.46 | $3.54 | $3.25 |
| Meals per student | 126 | 113 | 158 | |
|
Transportation
|
Spending per mile | $4.28 | $7.22 | $5.53 |
| Spending per rider | $1,370 | $2,862 | $1,945 |
Why monitor average teacher salary?
Teacher salaries are one of a school district’s most significant costs and have been a topic of high interest in Arizona. In FYs 2018 through 2021, additional State monies were provided to districts with the intention of increasing teacher salary 20 percent from the FY 2017 base year. These monies were provided to districts with the intention to increase teacher salaries, however districts were not required to use them this way, and the monies were not separately tracked to show how each district chose to spend them. We have included a bar chart showing how the State’s average teacher salary changed during this time and immediately after the plan ended. Further, we have broken down what portion of the State average teacher salary was from Classroom Site Fund (CSF) monies.
We have also included a table of other student and teacher measure trends during the same time frame for additional context. At a State level, these trends may not fluctuate much, but when looking at individual districts, some of these variables can help explain why the average teacher salary increased or decreased in certain years.
Average teacher salary and other measures
| Measure | FY 2017 | FY 2018 | FY 2019 | FY 2020 | FY 2021 | FY 2022 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Students per teacher Students per teacher is total State students attending divided by total State certified teachers. Total certified teachers includes special-area teachers such as art, music, and physical education teachers. | 18.5 | 18.4 | 18.0 | 18.0 | 17.0 | 17.2 |
| Average years of teacher experience | 11.3 | 11.4 | 11.5 | 11.7 | 11.9 | 11.8 |
| Percentage of teachers in first 3 years | 19% | 19% | 19% | 18% | 17% | 18% |
Student achievement
In FYs 2020 and 2021 State assessment testing was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, with school districts being exempted from conducting State assessments in FY 2020 and not all eligible students participating in FY 2021. With nearly all districts returning to in-person learning in FY 2022, we are presenting the percentage of students who passed State assessments for Math, English Language Arts (ELA), and Science assessments. We have included the percentage passing for each of the past 5 fiscal years, excluding FYs 2020 and 2021 for the reasons noted earlier. For additional information on how these percentages were calculated, see the “Student achievement” section on the Glossary page.
Percentage of students who passed State assessments
