School spending compared statewide

Don Robinson | Last updated Feb 11, 2003 12:0pm0

Sisters schools spent $7,553 per student on operating costs in 2000-2001, according to an audit by the Oregon Secretary of State's office.

That was slightly above the statewide average.

The audit entitled "Oregon Department of Education: Kindergarten Through 12th Grade Cost Survey" was released about six weeks ago. It was, in fact, a study of per-student operating expenditures in all 198 Oregon school districts, broken into several categories, for the year 2000-2001.

In total spending per student the survey shows the statewide average of all districts as $7,258. This is supposed to include a district's spending for all purposes except debt service and capital outlay, according to a senior auditor who worked on the survey.

Bend-La Pine and Redmond districts came in at $6,892 and $6,504 respectively, somewhat below the average. Differences of this type might be expected because larger districts benefit from economies of scale.

The accompanying chart lists the fall 2000 enrollments and total spending per student for all of the six Central Oregon school districts with more than 500 students. Sisters is next to the smallest of the group, exceeding only Culver in size. Sisters' spending per student, however, is the second highest of the group, exceeded only by Jefferson County School District (Madras).

Sisters Superintendent Steve Swisher said he thought the spending figure for his district looked a little high. After doing some research, Swisher offered a theory that may indicate that the figures in the study do contain some apples-and-oranges problems.

In 2000-2001, the Sisters district borrowed $800,000 against the Lundgren Mill property which it intends to sell as a way to pay for maintenance and repairs to the high school. The district actually spent $709,000 on those repairs.

Swisher says the borrowed money came into the general fund and was set up as "a special revenue fund basically for maintenance projects...so it probably did show as expenditures" that would have been included in the state's survey.

If this one-time special expenditure were excluded, Sisters' total spending per student would drop by $615 to a level of $6,938. The district would then rank fourth instead of second among its Central Oregon peers.

If the survey had been done for the following year, however, Sisters' ranking would be back up to the higher level. That's because the district's voters approved a "local option" levy that is yielding about $700,000 a year in operating revenue.

The levy began in 2001-2002 with a term of four years. Sisters is the only district of the six on the chart whose voters have approved such a supplement.

The survey breaks expenditures into three large categories and a variety of sub-categories. The chart below shows expenditures for one of the three major groupings, instruction, which includes everything from teachers' salaries and benefits to supplies and materials.

Sisters ranks second in this category among the Central Oregon districts, which caused Swisher no dismay.

"...At least it's being spent on instruction," he remarked, noting that "we do have better class sizes than our comparative districts around here, and that's a conscious effort."

The full survey, including data for every school district in Oregon, is on the Secretary of State's web site at www.sos.state.or.us

Per-student expenditures, 2000-2001

District

Enrollment

Total Spending

Instruction

Jefferson County

3,131

$8,669

$4,947

Sisters

1,153