Where does the money go?

While these numbers are for Manatee County for 2006 - 2007, your county is probably not much different.

For the derivation of the Operating Expenditure per Student, click here.

Clearly there are other operational expenses, but you have to ask, "Where does the money go?"

For the most recent 8 year period (budget years 2000 - 2001 through 2007 - 2008), the capital expenditures (things that are supposed to LAST) for the Manatee County School District totaled ALMOST $2,000,000,000 or roughly $46,000 per student based on current enrollment.

If there were 20 students in a classroom, that would equate to roughly $932,000 per classroom.

Where does the money go? 

¹The school board staff will probably not like this simplistic approach and argue that there are expenditures included other than strictly “Operational Expenses”. However, in Florida households and businesses, everyone has to look at both TOTAL revenue (income) and TOTAL expenses. It would be like you saying, "I am not going to count my house payment in my monthly expenses." Try that and see what your banker says when you start bouncing checks.

²Source: Florida Department of Education 2005 - 2006.

³Assumed 25%