Arizona School District Spending—Fiscal Year 2024—Analysis and data file 

In FY 2024, State-wide school district spending increased by over $500 million to $13.1 billion, with per student increases in all operational spending areas compared to FY 2023, including instruction. The increase was largely due to a one-time $300 million State aid supplement and an increase to districts’ base level funding. However, districts allocated a smaller proportion of the increased operational spending to instruction than in prior years, which led the State-wide instructional spending percentage to decrease to 52.6 percent. For the second consecutive year, this is the lowest recorded instructional spending percentage since we began monitoring in FY 2001.  

We also report on a State-wide decline in the number of students enrolled in district schools, which is closely tied to funding levels and has led some districts to close schools, lay off staff, or find other ways to reduce operational costs. For FY 2024, most districts reported higher average teacher salaries, with the State-wide average teacher salary increasing to $65,113—a 34.6% increase over the FY 2017 average. However, not all districts reported increases. Average teacher salaries declined in 38 percent of districts as these districts reduced the amount of COVID-19 federal relief monies they spent on teacher compensation and did not make up all the difference from other funding sources. We continued to see wide operational spending variations among similar districts in areas such as plant operations, indicating possible opportunities for improved efficiency at some districts, which could free up dollars for increasing teacher salaries, reducing class sizes, and other district priorities.  

Once again, we are providing our State-wide analysis results and individual district results in an interactive, user-friendly, web-based format. Similar to prior years, this format will allow you to easily view detailed results for a single district or the summarized State results in a manner that provides information about why this data is important and how it can be used. The website also defines and explains the measures we present, our objectives and scope, and data sources. Links to the website can be found under “Additional Links” below. Additionally, we continue to issue a supplemental Microsoft Excel data file, which contains the numbers and other information presented in the graphics on the individual district and State results pages and can be found under “Additional Documents” below.