{"id":6917,"date":"2012-05-02T12:20:16","date_gmt":"2012-05-02T16:20:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/?p=6917"},"modified":"2012-05-02T12:25:21","modified_gmt":"2012-05-02T16:25:21","slug":"what-administrative-costs-say-about-school-district-spending","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2012\/05\/02\/what-administrative-costs-say-about-school-district-spending\/","title":{"rendered":"What Administrative Costs Say About School District Spending"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_6971\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/maps\/mapping-florida-school-district-administrative-costs\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-6971\" title=\"Screen Shot 2012-05-02 at 11.40.33 AM\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2012\/05\/Screen-Shot-2012-05-02-at-11.40.33-AM-300x185.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"185\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2012\/05\/Screen-Shot-2012-05-02-at-11.40.33-AM-300x185.png 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2012\/05\/Screen-Shot-2012-05-02-at-11.40.33-AM.png 614w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Matt Stiles \/ NPR<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Darker red districts spend more per student on administration, lighter red district less. Click on the photo for our interactive map.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>There is no bigger target for school criticism than what <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/maps\/mapping-florida-school-district-administrative-costs\/\">districts spend on administrative staff and other overhead<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Joe Taxpayer wants to cry &#8220;waste!&#8221; when he sees a bunch of bureaucrats bringing down six figures at his expense.<\/p>\n<p>The Florida Department of Education knows this, and so they have been <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fldoe.org\/fefp\/AdministrativeExpenditures.asp\">adding up how much it costs each district<\/a> to oversee state funds for students.<\/p>\n<p>The numbers are not an absolute ranking of the most- and least-efficient school districts in the state. In general, small, rural districts spend more per student than large, urban districts such as Orange County or Miami-Dade County.<\/p>\n<p>Urban schools likely benefit from economies of scale &#8212; the more students you add, the less each additional student costs.<\/p>\n<p>But the list does allow comparisons among similar districts.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>For instance, the list <a href=\"http:\/\/www.heraldtribune.com\/article\/20120501\/ARTICLE\/120509999\">caused a dust-up in Manatee County<\/a>, which had higher administrative costs than 41 other Florida districts.<\/p>\n<p>Manatee school officials say there&#8217;s a reason for that: They prefer smaller schools, according to the <em>Sarasota Herald-Tribune<\/em> which are more manageable but require more money for administration.<\/p>\n<p>Orange County schools topped the list with a per student cost of $441.88. Franklin County &#8212; with just 926 students &#8212; had the highest cost in the state at $1,707.49 per student.<\/p>\n<div class=\"related-content alignleft\"><h4 class=\"related-header\">Related<\/h4><div class=\"links\"><h5>Posts<\/h5><ul><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/maps\/mapping-access-to-accelerated-coursework-at-florida-high-schools\/\">Mapping Access to Accelerated Courses at Florida High Schools<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/maps\/corporal-punishment-in-florida-schools\/\">Mapping Corporal Punishment in Florida Schools<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/maps\/map-average-teacher-salaries-in-florida\/\">Mapping Average Teacher Salary Change in Florida<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div><div class=\"topics\"><h5>Topics<\/h5><p class=\"topic\"><a href=\"\"><\/a><\/p><\/div><\/div>\n<p>Among the large districts, Duval County and Hillsborough County schools spent the most per student.<\/p>\n<p>Other observations:<\/p>\n<p>Even as budgets shrink, 21 districts spent less per student in administrative costs during the 2010-2011 school year than they did the previous year.<\/p>\n<p>Martin County schools led the way. That district spent $137.37 less per student on administration than the previous year &#8212; a difference of $2.4 million.<\/p>\n<p>Check out <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/maps\/mapping-florida-school-district-administrative-costs\/\">interactive map here<\/a>. What else do you notice?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There is no bigger target for school criticism than what districts spend on administrative staff and other overhead. Joe Taxpayer wants to cry &#8220;waste!&#8221; when he sees a bunch of bureaucrats bringing down six figures at his expense. The Florida Department of Education knows this, and so they have been adding up how much it [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":6971,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[1051,1036,193,308,390],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6917"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}