How much do Arizona school districts spend in classrooms?

The glare of the spotlight is shining on Arizona’s school districts’ classroom spending.

For the first time, parents and other Arizona taxpayers can compare the percentage each district plans to spend in the classroom this school year, a move spurred by critics such as Gov. Doug Ducey who claim that too much money goes toward administration.

The districts’ 2015-16 budgets were posted on the state Department of Education website in July because of a new state accountability law.

What is your district spending? Scroll down or click here to see a chart.

But the new requirement doesn’t necessarily tell parents everything they need to know about how districts spend money. The breakdowns are in percentages and don’t give exact dollar amounts. There’s no way to easily do side-by-side comparisons. Some district classifications may not match with other districts, and the data do not include everything parents may care about, such as the amount districts spend on security.

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The percentage that districts have budgeted for classroom spending, including teachers, aides, counselors and librarians, is now available on the websites throughout the year. A more complete annual report of district spending, in classrooms and on administrators, buses, food and utilities, comes out in February.

Ducey focused attention on the report during his State of the State address in January, when he said districts “spend far too much on administrative costs — on overhead — and that’s got to change.”

Teachers, parents and school advocates protested Ducey’s description of anything outside of instruction as “overhead,” saying that those categories included people crucial to the education mission, such as librarians, principals and school nurses.

“We have to be very careful of not looking at non-classroom spending as evil,” said Julie Bacon, a member of the Paradise Valley Unified School District governing board.

“There’s no way a teacher can do what they do in a classroom without the people around them to support them. It’s important to not vilify our employees who are not teachers.”

In the end, lawmakers expanded classroom spending to include not only teachers and textbooks but guidance counselors, nurses, librarians and curriculum specialists.

That total percentage now appears in a highlighted box on the cover of each district’s annual expenditure budget, which is signed by the district’s governing board members and posted on the Arizona Department of Education website, at http://www.azed.gov/finance/.

The Paradise Valley district held a public forum dedicated to explaining the spending percentages, where one community member, Tyler Heald of Phoenix, expressed dismay that the Legislature didn’t pursue a requirement to shift spending from administration to instruction.

“My concern is that we’re not going to take what this budget was intended to do, which was take money away from administration and put it into teachers’ pockets. It sounds like we’re not going to do it because we’re not legally required to.

“The primary function of education is to educate, not administrate.”

Jim Lee, the superintendent, said: “In my 35 years of experience, I know that good schools are run by good principals.”

Not everyone thinks the emphasis on classroom spending is valuable.

“On the one hand, we’re not sure it’s fair. And on the other hand, we’re not sure it’s accurate,” said Sean McCarthy, senior research analyst for the Arizona Tax Research Association watchdog group.

McCarthy said districts have different needs, and it’s difficult to compare the spending percentages of large urban districts with small rural districts.

“And, there’s not enough auditors in the country to make sure this is meaningful,” he added.

The auditors’ report is compiled based on information provided by districts, which might have inaccurate information on how to classify expenses.

He pointed out the example of the Scottsdale Unified School District, which was found this year to have improperly classified millions of dollars in spending over several years. Scottsdale administrators said some of the misclassifications were mistakes but with others, the staff believed them to be correct at the time.

There are no penalties for mischaracterizing spending, and the auditor’s office does a detailed review of only five or six districts every year.

McCarthy said the taxpayer watchdog group believes a more equitable funding formula is the answer.

“If we can have an equitable finance system, it doesn’t bother me whether a school district has a higher need for administrators, because we’re going to give them equitable funding and they choose how to spend it.

“Districts are naturally incentivized to spend their money wisely, because if you’re going to waste money on administration, it’s unsustainable. You’ll lose quality teachers, and you’ll lose students, and if you lose students, you lose money,” he said.

He said some districts receive revenue outside the funding formula, such as for desegregation.

Phoenix Union, which will spend 80 percent of this year’s budget in the classroom, gets $55 million in desegregation funds — about $2,000 a student. It’s one of 14 districts in the county to get the extra money.

“It’s unfair to compare districts that are not getting as much money as another,” he said.

While the percentage figure shows one way that schools are spending money, it’s not the whole picture.

It doesn’t reveal the actual dollar amounts that districts spend. For 2014, the Gilbert Unified School District spent $4,171 per student on instruction, or 61.2 percent. The Mesa Unified School District spent more dollars per student on instruction — $4,572 — but its instruction percentage was lower than Gilbert’s — 57.1 percent.

Some school officials say that a spending number isn’t what parents are interested in.

“Parents don’t want to send their kids to a failing school,” said Carl Zaragova, governing board member of the Creighton Elementary School District in central Phoenix. “But when we talk to our families, they are looking at things that are not measured, like a loving environment. They’re interested in foreign languages and a STEM program.”

He said that parents in his district are concerned about safety and want security guards — which are not considered classroom spending.

School officials also say the spending percentage is susceptible to costs that are outside the districts’ control.

In Paradise Valley, electricity costs have increased 42 percent in the past decade, and medical insurance has shot up 78 percent. Both of those increases can squeeze the classroom-spending portion.

Laura Felten, assistant superintendent for business operations for the district, said the new rule of predicting the spending percentage for the current year could be swayed by volatile market forces. For example, a spike in fuel prices — or even a big decrease like what happened in January — could affect spending percentages during the year.

“Or, let’s pretend we can’t fill our bus-driver positions, which is a non-classroom expense,” she said. “If we end up having to hire out a company to come in and provide transportation services, you won’t know that until the middle of the year.”

But Ducey believes that posting the percentages is a good start.

“The governor believes that more transparency for families is a good thing, so they can see how many dollars are getting to where they need to be,” said Daniel Scarpinato, spokesman for Ducey.

Scarpinato said that beyond tracking where existing funding is being spent, Ducey knows the system needs more money.

“Since January, he has been traveling all over the state and meeting with parents and teachers and principals and one thing he has heard over and over again is that they need more resources.”

Here is the percentage that districts in Maricopa County spent on the classroom in 2013-14, as described by the Arizona Office of the Auditor General, as well as the percentage in each district’s budgets for 2015-16. The figures are a sum of the percentages proposed for instruction, instructional support and student support.An azcentral review shows nearly two-thirds of the 55 school districts in Maricopa County will spend a higher percentage in the classroom than two years ago, according to projected 2015-16 budgets posted on the state Department of Education website.

Only percentages, not dollar figures, are available. The public will still have to wait for the auditor’s report in February for the detailed district breakdown of 2015 as well as statewide data. Spending breakdowns for 2014-15 have not been calculated yet.