June 28, 2010
New York spends most per student for schooling, 67 percent above the average
CARA MATTHEWS
Gannett Albany Bureau
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ALBANY - New York spent $17,173 per student for public education in 2007-08, more than any other state and 67 percent more than the U.S. average, according to Census Bureau statistics released today.
The $10,259 average nationally - $6,914 less than New York -- was a 6.1 percent increase over 2006-07, the Census Bureau said. New York's spending went up 7.4 percent over the two years.
Eighteen states and the District of Columbia spent more than $10,259 and 32 spent less in the 2007-08 school year.
New York's per-student spending was highest in 2006-07 too at $15,981 per student, and the national average was $9,666.
States and state equivalents that came close to New York's spending per student in 2007-08 were New Jersey ($16,491), Alaska ($14,630), the District of Columbia ($14,594), Vermont ($14,594), Vermont ($14,300) and Connecticut ($13,848), the Census Bureau found. At the other end of the spectrum were Utah ($5,765), Idaho ($6,931), Arizona ($7,608), Oklahoma ($7,685) and Tennessee ($7,739).
Public education is the single largest category of all state and local government expenditures, Lisa Blumerman, chief of the Census Bureau's Governments Division, said in a statement.
In New York, lawmakers and Gov. David Paterson have been considering placing a cap on how much school-district expenses can increase each year as a way of providing property-tax relief to strapped homeowners. The amount of property taxes that went to New York education in 2007-08 was $14.8 billion, compared to $14.1 billion in 2006-07, the Census Bureau said.
Paterson and lawmakers are also fighting over how much aid to provide to schools. Members of the Assembly and Senate said they plan to pass a joint budget that restores $600 million of the governor's proposed $1.4 billion school-aid cut. The governor's revised budget proposal would restore $300 million of the $1.4 billion cut.
Public schools nationally spent $593.2 billion in 2007-08, a 6 percent jump over the previous year, the census report said.
Total funding that public-school systems received in 2008 was $582.1 billion, 4.5 percent more than in 2006-07. State governments' portion of that totaled 48.3 percent and local governments contributed 43.7 percent. The remaining 8.1 percent came from federal sources, the report said.
In New York, state government's portion was 45.4 percent in 2007-08, and local governments contributed 48.7 percent of the total, with 5.9 percent from federal sources. The spread in 2006-07 was 45.2 percent from the state, 48.4 percent from local governments and 6.5 percent from federal sources.
Outstanding debt at the end of the 2006-07 fiscal year was $28.7 billion in New York, and it increased to $29.5 billion the following year, census statistics show. The amount of revenue New York received from the federal government dropped from one year to the next - from $3.3 billion to $3.1 billion.
Other findings in the report for 2007-08 include:
• School districts' debt totaled $377.4 billion, a 7.9 percent increase.
• The largest single category of spending was for instructional salaries, which were $203.5 billion, 40.2 percent of the total.
• Louisiana had the highest percentage of public-school funding from the federal government at 16.8 percent, followed by Mississippi (16 percent) and South Dakota (15.2 percent). The lowest percentages were in New Jersey (3.9 percent), Connecticut (4.2 percent) and Massachusetts (5.1 percent).
• Vermont had the highest percentage of state-government funding at 88.5 percent, followed by 84.8 percent in Hawaii, where state government runs elementary and secondary education. States with the lowest percentages of funding from state government were Nebraska (33 percent), South Dakota (33.2 percent) and Illinois (33.8 percent).
• States with the highest percentage of local-government funding were Illinois (58.2 percent), Nebraska (57.3 percent) and Connecticut (57.3 percent). The lowest were Hawaii (3 percent), Vermont (5 percent) and Arkansas (13.4 percent).
• Nearly 64 percent of revenue for public education from local sources came from property taxes.
The report was compiled based on a census of all 15,569 public-school districts around the country.
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