>Taxpayers’ Guide to Education Spending – May 2011
Introduction
The Taxpayers’ Guide to Education Spending (Taxpayers’ Guide) provides officials and the public the opportunity to view and compare all dollars spent on students for which public schools must provide services. Since previously reported per pupil costs did not include all expenditures, the Department has created a new variable that includes the total amount that is actually spent on students from preschool through grade 12.
The “Total Spending” calculation enhances the Budgetary Per Pupil Cost (formerly known as the Total Comparative Cost) by adding previously omitted categories of spending. Specifically, the Department added the following expenditures to arrive at the total spending number: transportation, special revenues, pension and benefits paid by the state, facilities (including debt service), equipment, total food services, judgments against the school district, and tuition/costs for students sent out of district (except payments to Charter schools). Consistent with the decision to include tuition for students sent out of district, the associated students are added to the enrollment denominator.
In addition to the new total spending measure, the Budgetary Per Pupil Cost Indicators are included to allow districts to review and compare various components of a school district’s annual budgeted data with other districts in the state through a series of “indicators” presenting costs on a per pupil basis. The Budgetary Per Pupil Cost is the amount that districts publish in their User-Friendly Budgets prior to the school election. It was formerly called the “Total Comparative Cost.” Unless otherwise noted in the indicator descriptions, districts are ranked from lowest to highest
costs.
https://www.state.nj.us/education/guide/2011/intro.pdf
