GoBigEd

Posted 7:36 AM by Susan Darst Williams

HOW NEBRASKA SCHOOLS
DIVIDE UP THE TAX DOLLAR

There’s a new report out from the U.S. Bureau of the Census that’s chockablock with interesting school spending statistics from 2004. You can search for Nebraska on: http://ftp2.census.gov/govs/school/04f33pub.pdf

No news here in the national stats: per-pupil spending rose again over the previous year. The national average of per-pupil spending topped $8,287, a 3.3% increase over the previous year. Nebraska ranked 24th, with $8,032 spent per pupil that school year.

According to the Census Bureau, public elementary and secondary education received $462.7 billion from federal, state and local sources in 2004, up 5.1 percent from 2003.

State governments contributed the greatest share of public elementary and secondary school funding at $218.1 billion. In 2004, state governments contributed 47.1 percent of school funding, down from 49.0 percent in 2003.

Local sources contributed 43.9 percent at $203.3 billion. The federal government’s share, which came to $41.3 billion in 2004, rose from 8.4 to 8.9 percent.

Looking at Nebraska per-pupil spending, a chart on page 8 revealed that of the $8,032 spent per pupil per year, $5,163 went for instruction salaries and benefits, and $2,498 went for support services.

Of that support service figure, $353 per pupil went for pupil support, $279 went for staff support, $280 went for general administration and $428 went for school administration.

That means that Nebraska spends 64 cents of every school dollar on teaching, and 31 cents on nonclassroom functions, plus another nickel for programs like adult education, community services and other programs that aren’t specifically for elementary and secondary education.