NY Tops Nation in Per-Pupil School Spending, Says U.S. Census Bureau (NY)
June 29, 2010
New York spent $17,173 per student for public education in 2007-08, more than any other state and 67 percent higher than the national average, according to Census Bureau statistics released Monday.
The $10,259 average nationally 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. Public education is the single largest category of all state and local spending.
New York’s per-student spending was highest in 2006-07 too at $15,981 per student, compared to an average of $9,666 across the country.
Eighteen states and the District of Columbia spent more than $10,259 and 32 spent less in the 2007-08 school year. States that came close to New York that year included New Jersey ($16,491 per student) and Alaska ($14,630). At the other end of the spectrum were Utah ($5,765), Idaho ($6,931) and Arizona ($7,608).
In New York, lawmakers and Gov. David Paterson have been considering capping how much school-district expenses can increase each year as a way of providing property-tax relief to strapped homeowners. The amount of p roperty 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 debating how much aid to provide to schools. The Legislature’s budget would restore $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.
If New York spent the same on elementary and secondary education as the two states that ranked higher in Education Week’s recent annual "Quality Counts" report – Maryland ($4,207 less per student) and Massachusetts ($3,219 less per pupil) – it could have saved $11.5 million or $10 million, respectively, said EJ McMahon, director of the fiscally conservative Empire Center for New York State Policy.
"It’s ironic that these numbers are coming out during a budget vote that’s fixated on spending more on schools in a fiscal crisis," he said, referring to the nearly three-month late state budget.
McMahon said school employees’ salaries and benefits comprise most of the $6,915 difference in per-pupil spending between New York and the national average. State spending on instructional salaries and benefits alone — $11,818 per student, or 90 percent higher than the average – was more than the total per-pupil spending in 39 states, he said.
The 15,569 public-school districts 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.
In New York, state government’s portion was 45.4 percent in 2007-08, and local governments contributed 48.7 percent, 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.
The high cost of doing business in New York City, the northern suburbs and on Long Island drives up the state average, said David Albert, spokesman for the state School Boards Association.
New York relies heavily on property taxes to fund education. The School Boards Association would like the state to bear more of the cost and remove some of the burden from property taxpayers, Albert said. With the state’s fiscal difficulties, however, that’s not something that could happen in the short term, he said.
Other findings in the report for 2007-08 include:
— School districts’ debt totaled $377.4 billion, a 7.9 percent increase. 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 in 2007-08.
— 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 state funding were Nebraska (33 percent) and South Dakota (33.2 percent).
— States with the highest percentage of local-government funding were Illinois (58.2 percent) and Nebraska (57.3 percent). The lowest were Hawaii (3 percent) and Vermont (5 percent).