Basic Budget Arithmetic

What is the DOE per pupil budget? With three figures for total budget and two for enrollment, this question has six reasonable answers.

2005-2006 School Year
Total Revenues: a=$2,703,718,000
Total Expenditures: b=$2,026,254,000
Current Expenditures: c=$1,805,521,000
Fall enrollment: d=182,818
Average Daily Attendance: e=168,009

According to the online calculator, this gives...
a/d=$14,789
a/e=$16,092
b/d=$11,280
b/e=$12,060
c/d=$9,876
c/e=$10,746

Guestimating here, suppose the average classroom teacher makes, say, $40,000 before taxes. Suppose that pension and benefits add 50% or $20,000 to the cost of a classroom teacher's total compensation. How many students would the average teacher have to take into her home to earn her salary as a contractor to parents empowered to provide for their children's education?
$60,000/$16092=3.728; round up to four.
$60,000/$9,876=6.075; round down to six.

If your average DOE classroom contains 24 students, the average DOE teacher carries bewteen three (24/6-1) and five (24/4-1) out-of-classroom parasites on her back.

"What about special ed?", defenders of the NEA/AFSCME cartel will ask. The State Auditor has calculated that sp-ed students cost, on average, twice what regular ed kids cost, and the DOE reports that sp-ed enrollment amounts to about 11% of the population. Let the mean cost of a regular ed student be x. Then the mean cost of a sp-ed student is 2x. Special ed enrollment (fall, 2005) was .11(182,818) or 20,110. This gives a regular-ed population of 162,708.

Now, solve
2(p)(20,110)+(p)(162708)=$2,703,718,000 => p=$13,324
2(q)(20,110)+(q)(162708)=$2,026,254,000 => q=$9,985
2(r)(20,110)+(r)(162708)=$1,805,521,000 => r=$8,895

If we trust the DOE's accounting, regular-ed students cost, on average, between $8,895 and $13,324 per year. If the legislature were to mandate that the DOE allot 2/3 of the lower figure, $5930 to Parent Performance Contracting, rounding up to $6,000 (for convenience), the average classroom teacher could earn her current compensation by taking ten neighborhood kids into her house.

Your legislators would rather bankrupt the State.