Kansas school spending, an interactive visualization

An interactive visualization of spending for Kansas school districts.

The accompanying visualization holds both nominal dollar amounts and amounts adjusted to reflect 2016 dollars. Data includes state aid, local aid, federal aid, and total spending for each school district, both total and per pupil. The visualization includes both tables and charts.

For the school year ending in 2016, total spending per pupil was $13,015. This is down from an inflation-adjusted $13,222 for 2015, a decline of 1.56 percent. Considering state funding only, per-pupil funding for 2016 was $8,540, down from an inflation-adjusted $8,631 for 2016, a decline of 1.05 percent.

In fiscal year 2015 there was a shift in the way property tax revenue is reported, with revenue formerly counted as “local” being counted as “state.” One of the tabs in the visualization shows the sum of local and state values, which eliminates the effect of the change in reporting.

Kansas Policy Institute has spending data without KPERS (retirement) spending at Non-KPERS funding sets another per-pupil record in 2015-16.

Spending and revenue data is from Kansas State Department of Education. Inflation-adjusted data calculated using Consumer Price Index, all items, 1982-84=100 (series CUUR0000SA0) from U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The price level used for 2016 is for the first half of 2016. Visualization created using Tableau Public.

Click here to open the visualization in a new window.