Revenues and Expenditures for Public Elementary and Secondary Education: School Year 2004–2005

NCES 2007-356 April 2007

Selected Findings: Fiscal year 2005

• Approximately $487.8 billion was collected in revenues for public elementary and secondary education in the 50 states and the District of Columbia in fiscal year 2005 (FY 05) (table 1). The greatest percentage of revenues came from state and local governments, which together provided $443.0 billion, or 90.8 percent of all revenues; the federal government's contribution was $44.8 billion, or 9.2 percent of all revenues (figure 1).
• Current expenditures for public elementary and secondary education totaled $424.6 billion in FY 05, with $280.0 billion (65.9 percent) spent on instruction and instruction-related activities, $22.1 billion (5.2 percent) on student support services, $46.8 billion (11.0 percent) on administration, and $75.7 billion (17.8 percent) on operations (table 2 and figure 2).
• Current expenditures per pupil for public elementary and secondary education were $8,701 in FY 05, including $5,737 on instruction and instruction-related activities (table 3). Adjusting for inflation¹, current expenditures per pupil have grown 23.5 percent since FY 95 ($7,047) and 38.9 percent since FY 85 ($6,263) (figure 3).
• In FY 05, public elementary and secondary education spent $259.6 billion on instruction, $147.6 billion on support services, $16.4 billion on food services, and $959.5 million on enterprise operations (table 4). These four expenditure functions accounted for 61.1 percent, 34.8 percent, 3.9 percent, and 0.2 percent of current expenditures for public elementary and secondary education, respectively (table 5).
• Looking at per pupil current expenditures for public elementary and secondary education in FY 05, instruction expenditures ranged from $9,425 in New York to $3,302 in Utah, and support services expenditures ranged from $5,923 in the District of Columbia to $1,593 in Utah (table 6).
• Current instruction and instruction-related expenditures on public elementary and secondary education totaled $280.0 billion in FY 05, with $190.9 billion spent on salaries and $58.5 billion spent on employee benefits (table 7).
• Total expenditures for public elementary and secondary education and other related programs were $499.1 billion in FY 05, including $424.6 billion in current expenditures, $47.6 billion in facilities acquisition and construction, $5.9 billion in replacement equipment, $7.7 billion in other programs (such as community services and adult education, which are not part of public elementary and secondary education), and $13.3 billion in interest on debt (table 8).

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¹ Data have been adjusted to fiscal year 2005 dollars. See Appendix A: Methodology and Technical Notes for more information on inflation-adjusted data.

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