Classroom spending at Arizona schools dips, state reports shows

PHOENIX — Arizona schools spent less of the money they received last year in the classroom than in any of the 15 years the state has been keeping track, a new report shows.

Just 53.6 cents out of every dollar spent to educate Arizona youngsters in 2015 went for instruction, the Auditor General’s Office found. That includes everything from teachers, aides and even coaches to supplies like pencils and paper and some activities such as band or choir.

Aside from being at the lowest point since the agency started looking at the issue in 2001, it also is 7.2 cents below the national average.

Of the nine school districts in the Tucson area, TUSD, Sunnyside and Amphitheater spent less in the classrooms than their peer districts.

Southern Arizona’s largest school district — TUSD — spent about $70 more per student in 2015 than it did in 2014, but it was not enough to increase its classroom spending percentage from 48.7 percent.

The decision to invest more in the classroom and in teacher salaries, however, did help the district inch closer to what is spent on average per pupil across the state, said TUSD leader H.T. Sanchez.

FOCUS ON ENROLLMENT

The report also reflects that financial and internal controls are compliant, that TUSD is maintaining a financial surplus and the graduation rate is higher than the state average even though the poverty rate is also higher. Still, TUSD’s dollars in the classroom percentage was the lowest of Tucson-area districts and the lowest when compared to districts across the state in its peer group.

Sanchez believes that has to do with the fact that TUSD has so many campuses, that its high schools have more assistant principals than needed according to a formula and that the district is operating under a court order mandating a number of administrative positions other school districts don’t have.

While the district has no choice but to comply with the court’s desegregation order, it does have control over the number of campuses it operates.

A recently conducted efficiency audit found 14,000 empty seats in TUSD, enough to house the neighboring Amphitheater School District, but Sanchez says he is not in a school closure state of mind. His focus, rather, is on leveling off enrollment losses.

“We’re not at the financial point where we’re laying off people and freezing salaries and doing all of that, so I’m not comfortable talking about closing more schools when we’re not in financial distress and when we’re rolling over the max amount the state is allowing us to,” Sanchez said.

The only scenario under which Sanchez says he will study school mergers is if enrollment declines by more than 600 to 700 students going into next school year because in the past enrollment has taken a hard hit when the district closed schools.

Cutting the number of assistant principals is also off the table because that support is needed with the population of students TUSD serves, Sanchez said.

Sunnyside, which serves about 16,000 students, spent 48.8 percent on instruction, according to the report. Its peers spent on average 52.9 percent. The district spent more than any other Tucson-area school districts on food service and instructional support.

A spokeswoman for Sunnyside said the district has not had a chance to review the report and that it cannot comment.

Fewer overall dollars

Fewer dollars are going to schools overall, the report says.

Between 2004 and 2015, total per-pupil spending actually decreased $424 when inflation is taken into account. That includes the years when the governor and Legislature illegally ignored a 2000 voter mandate to boost state aid annually to account for inflation.

What happened during that same time, the audit says, is classroom spending decreased by an even larger amount at $629 per pupil, while spending in other operational areas increased or remained relatively steady.

It’s not surprising that classroom spending as a share of all dollars continues to decline, said Chuck Essigs, lobbyist for the Arizona Association of School Business Officials.

“If you’re really low spending in your state, it still costs you money to fix your roofs,” he said. “It costs you money to heat your buildings, cool your buildings, pay for the lights and everything, whether you’re in a state that spends a lot of money on education or a very low amount.”

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Put simply, Essigs said if some costs remain fixed, the only place for schools to trim when state funding runs short is on the instructional side.

But Vicki Hanson, who manages the audit, said the numbers don’t back that up.

“If costs were fixed, during the years where districts got more money, we would have seen the classroom dollar percentage go up,” she said. “But it didn’t.”

Hanson acknowledged Arizona schools, on average, spend far less than the national average on all operational expenses. The figure here is $7,658 per pupil; the comparable average is $10,763.

“But the question is, why does that lower spending need to come from the classroom?” Hanson asked.

Squeezing that section of the budget has an effect.

Between 2004 and 2015, the average teacher salary, adjusted for inflation, decreased 8 percent even though the average years of experience stayed about the same. And just in the past five years, the statewide annual teacher salary decreased from $47,077 to $46,008 despite a 4 percent increase in average years of teacher experience.

During the same time, the average number of students per teacher increased from 17.9 to 18.6.

Essigs said the 53.6-cent figure on classroom spending is misleading. He said it’s “very narrow,” including only teacher salaries and supplies.

“It doesn’t include counselors, it doesn’t include nurses, it doesn’t include teacher training,” he said. And he said those all play an equal part in what schools need to do.

“If you’re a district that has a lot of children at risk and you need counseling services, it makes you look like you’re spending less (proportionately) on teaching kids,” Essigs said.

The trend in the report is not surprising, said Tim Ogle, executive director of the Arizona School Boards Association. He said it is a direct result of inadequate state funding.

And Ogle said it shows the importance of voters approving Proposition 123 in May. If that passes it clears the way for an extra $3.5 billion to be put into schools in the next decade.

“Our teachers are underpaid and our classrooms are too big,” he said.

What that also leads to is a shortage of qualified teachers. Schools fill the gap with substitutes who are paid less than trained professionals, which in turn means fewer dollars spent in the classroom, Ogle said.

Daniel Scarpinato, press aide to Gov. Doug Ducey, said the report underscores “the very real need for more total dollars to our schools.” That’s exactly what parents, teachers and administrators told his boss when he visited schools last year, he said.

“That’s what the plan that was passed in the special session does,” Scarpinato said, referring to Proposition 123. He also said the governor’s Classrooms First Council is focused on the same goal.

“There’s a need to increase the pie” rather than simply arguing over how the limited funds should be used, Scarpinato said.

He said, though, Ducey wants to focus on more than just the amount of cash provided to schools.

“The governor’s interest is really, as we’re adding additional dollars that parents have an expectation that they’re going to see better performance for their kids and better academics for their kids,” Scarpinato said.

“The interest is how do we use the dollars going in to best achieve that,” he said. “That might be different from school to school, based on their needs and their particular challenges.”