Stan Geiger

Per Pupil Spending on the Spike

The Tulsa World recently ran a story about a U.S. Census Bureau report on per-pupil spending in public school systems. The information offered was a bit dated; it pertained to 2006.

In that year, according to the bureau, Oklahoma's per-pupil spending figure was $6,961. Much was made---by members of the PEC---of the fact that the figure ranked Oklahoma 47th in the nation. And that Oklahoma's figure was below the national average of $9,138.

One of the members had this to say:

Until Oklahoma as a state decides to fund education appropriately and make it a priority, it will not pay the kind of dividends the state needs, [the assistant superintendent of teaching and learning of Union Public Schools] said.

The article continued:

Nationally, public school systems received $521.1 billion in funding from federal, state and local sources in 2006, which was a 6.7 percent increase over 2005, according the Census Bureau report.

Going back to the day, I'd say a 6.7 percent one-year increase in funding at least doubled the annual inflation rate.

But what about Oklahoma? Well, as I noted earlier, the information in the census report is dated. OETA's 'Stateline' is currently reporting an Oklahoma per-pupil spending figure of $8,000. So if you take the census report number from 2006 and correlate it to what OETA says is the current number, you see an increase in Oklahoma per-pupil spending of $1,039. And that means that in just 2 years Oklahoma's per-pupil spending on common education is up just a hair under 15 percent.

In the eyes of the educators, just what the hell does it take "to fund education appropriately and make it a priority?"

The article continued:

The report found that school districts allotted $271.8 billion to elementary and secondary education, of that, $184.4 billion was spent on salaries and $58.5 billion on employee benefits.

I can't believe the World printed that information. It must have slipped past the editors.

Out of $271.8 billion in education spending referred to, $242.9 billion of it---89.3 percent---went directly to education employees in one form or another. Which means a little over 10 percent of all education funding goes to the things educators are constantly throwing into the faces of taxpayers as critical needs. Only about 10 percent goes to things like buildings, utility bills, textbooks, lunches, buses and computers. The rest goes into employees' pockets.

Breaking it down, 67.8 percent of funding went to paychecks and a staggering 21.5 percent of funding went to employee benefits.

Go find me a private company that dedicates over 21 percent of its gross annual revenue to benefits for employees. For that matter, go find me a private school that dedicates over 21 percent of its gross annual revenue to benefits for employees.

In closing, the report noted that New York topped the list of per-pupil spending, with a figure of $14,884 a head. Why? Well, because, when it comes to population, New York is New York City. And it costs a whole bunch of money to live there, which means school employees get paid more out of necessity. A teacher making 70 grand in NYC probably doesn't live as well as a teacher in Tulsa making half that.

Utah came in at the bottom, with a figure of $5,437 a head.

If given the choice, would you rather your child went to school in Utah or in New York City?

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