District 2006-2007 Budget Online

Recently I made a post or comment wherein I questioned the District not having the budget online. Well guess what? It turns out it is online and you can read the 2006-2007 School Budget here (PDF - 63 pages long so it takes time).

There is also a summary from one of the Board Meetings that I do recall coming across previously and it is located here.

The number crunchers can go hog wild, but here is my short and simple take:

There are five year comparisons beginning 1998-99 school year, and I'll compare the first against the last proposed (now approved) 2006-07 school year.

• Total Expenditures: $ 32,114,277 to $ 53,617,774
• Total Mills: 31.38 to 38.7
• Enrollment: 4033 to 4760
• Cost Per Enrollment: $ 7962.88 to $ 11,395.31

The striking item is the jump in the cost to educate each student. Had the district been able to keep the cost per enrollment flat (at say $8,000) we'd have expenditures of $38,080,000 instead of the $53,617,774. It would be interesting to see if anyone has or can analyze where the costs have jumped so significantly to better understand what they are getting today for the extra money that they weren't getting previously.

Thanks again to the individual who pointed these links out to me. (Even with them when I tried to navigate the site I couldn't find it - maybe the next district site improvement will be a search box;-)