PHOENIX — The Arizona Auditor General recently released a comprehensive report on school spending in the state.
They found, among other things, some districts allocate a larger share of their per-pupil funding to classroom spending than others.
The report showed Arizona’s statewide average per-pupil spending for everything is $10,729 in the fiscal year 2022. This marks a nearly 8% increase in spending from the prior fiscal year. A little over half of that is spent on student instruction, a 6% rise.
Spending in the Auditor General report is broken down by money going to supporting classrooms versus administrative costs.
They define classroom as spending on direct student instruction, as well as student and teacher support.
Administrative spending combines costs for school administration, operation, food, and transportation. The ratio of classroom to administrative spending is 69.5% to 30.5%.
School districts in four counties spend more on average on the classroom compared to the statewide average. Three of those counties; Maricopa, Pima, and Pinal, are home to most of Arizona’s population.
Graham County is the rural exception where classroom spending is higher than other rural counties.
The data also shows that larger districts serving more than 15,000 students have higher average classroom spending per student. As districts get smaller, the per-student classroom spending also goes down. Districts considered very small, with fewer than 200 students, spend on average 58% in the classrooms.
The districts that allocate the highest share of funding to classrooms spend about three of every four dollars on it.
The top two districts for classroom spending are both located in Graham County. The remaining three of the top five are very large districts in Maricopa County: Paradise Valley Unified School District, Tempe Elementary School District, and Glendale Union High School District
