Two out of every three dollars funneled to school districts last year in Washington went directly into classrooms for teachers, textbooks and other teaching costs, according to a state auditor’s report released last month.
That leaves a large chunk that paid for everything else, including administration, school lunches and transportation.
The review is one of the most complete snapshots of how dollars are spent at school districts around the state and Snohomish County. The performance audit on K-12 education spending also shows that most school districts in Snohomish and Island counties spend between $8,000 and $10,000 per student.
Edmonds mirrors the statewide trend with nearly 63 percent of all dollars from federal, state and local sources going directly into classrooms. The school district spends $9,256 per student, according to the numbers compiled from the 2010-11 school year. Of that, $5,815 went directly into the classroom.
Everyone agrees that a larger amount of the total should be spent inside the classroom, but how to get that percentage higher is something that still needs to be resolved.
“We were doing this before, trying to look at what we do compared to other districts and trying to be fair between teachers, paraprofessionals and custodians,” said Larry Nyland, Marysville School District superintendent. “The audit does give us more fine-tuned detail in terms of how many teachers, classified staff, administrators or custodians we have compared to a state formula.”
The state has made deep cuts in education for years, and school districts throughout the state have been forced to react, said Rich Wood, a spokesman for the Washington Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union.
The numbers and information in the audit are not surprising, Wood said. He feels it doesn’t provide a lot of new insight into how schools are funded.
Officials in the Edmonds School District reviewed the information in the audit, spokeswoman DJ Jakala said. It didn’t provide any new clues on how to move money into classrooms, though.
“We appreciate reviewing the information and are always looking for ways to improve, but have not found anything new in this latest data,” she said.
The audit does show that some school districts should increase the amount they put into teaching, said Liv Finne, director of the Center for Education at the Washington Policy Center based in Seattle.
“It makes me upset to hear these officials say this doesn’t help,” she said. “There’s room for improvement.”
Since 2005, the state Auditor’s Office has had authority to conduct performance audits of state and local governments and their agencies.
From the beginning, the auditor’s office did surveys and town hall-style meetings and found that people “wanted to see audits of school districts and how dollars were being used in classrooms,” said Mindy Chambers, spokeswoman for the State Auditor’s Office.
“We did an audit on school district expenses several years ago, and this builds on it,” she said. “We have been discussing this dollars-in-the-classroom for a very long time, and it’s been a priority of Brian Sonntag, the state auditor, for a very long time.”
The audit grouped school districts based on their enrollment, income level, location and whether they had a high school, and compared how they spent money. It also offered suggestions on how some districts are saving money outside the classroom. The office used state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction data to make comparisons among the state’s 295 school districts.
The report included two primary recommendations, Chambers said. The first is for school districts to look at the dollars they spend outside classrooms compared with other districts to see if they can save money to be used in the classroom. The other is for the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction to consider maintaining and updating the database of the district profiles used to create the audit report.
“We don’t have any kind of enforcement authority,” Chambers said. “We can’t make them do anything. I always tell people the best result of an audit is if people look at the report and the results we found and consider how they might use the recommendations.”
Washington and 11 other states spent about 60 percent of school dollars in the classroom, according to a 2009 comparison by the National Center for Education Statistics. The 2009 comparison is the most recent available. It also shows that 18 states spent more than Washington in the classroom and 20 states spent less. According to the audit, moving 1 percent of the dollars spent on administrative offices to classrooms would be enough to pay for more than 1,000 teachers across the state.
As part of the audit, 28 school districts identified by the state Auditor’s Office as spending less outside the classroom than similar districts that were interviewed. Districts in Snohomish and Island counties that were interviewed were Arlington and Mukilteo.
The auditor’s office is to be commended for the report, said Finne, who spoke June 20 in Olympia at a Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee hearing.
“The auditor’s office is doing exactly what it was intended to under Initiative 900,” she said. “This auditor report shows that within the public sector, existing resources can be better allocated to achieve results.”
By the numbers
A look at the total spending per student in the Edmonds School District, and a breakdown of where that money went:
Full-time students: 19,612
Spending per student: $9,256
Teaching (instruction): $5,815 (62.8%)
Instruction support: $371 (4.0%)
Student support: $805 (8.7%)
Central administration: $27 (0.3%)
Building administration: $502 (5.4%)
Other support: $346 (3.7%)
Operations/maintenance: $817 (8.8%)
Transportation: $339 (3.7%)
Food services: $234 (2.5%)
Source: State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction
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