Background

These and other financial data on public elementary and secondary education are collected and reported each year by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), U.S. Department of Education. The data are part of the "National Public Education Financial Survey" (NPEFS), one of the components of the Common Core of Data (CCD) collection of surveys. The initial release data in this report were collected from March to September 2004. Editing and imputations were completed in November 2004.

While these data are for school year 2002–03, NPEFS reports the data on a fiscal calendar, using the later year to denote the fiscal year 2003. Thus, fiscal year 2003 began on July 1, 2002, and ended on June 30, 2003. However, Alabama started on October 1, 2002, while in Nebraska and Texas, the fiscal year started on September 1, 2002. (Definitions of terms used throughout this report, including state and local revenues, are provided in appendix B of this report.)

Purpose of Survey

The purpose of the NPEFS Survey is to provide district, state, and federal policymakers, researchers, and other interested users with descriptive information about revenues and expenditures for public elementary and secondary education. The data collected are useful to (1) chief officers of state education agencies; (2) policymakers in the executive and legislative branches of federal and state governments; (3) education policy and public policy researchers; and (4) the public, journalists, and others.

Organization of This Report

This report presents selected findings from the survey. The body of this report is composed of tables providing an overview of revenues and expenditures for public elementary and secondary education during the 2003 fiscal year. The tables present data on three topics:

• Revenues-presents amount and percentage of local, state, and federal revenue.
• Current expenditures-compares state spending on day-to-day expenditures.
• Total expenditures-highlights current expenditures plus facilities acquisition and construction, replacement equipment, other programs, and interest on debt.