The New Jersey Department of Education announced in a news release the availability of the 2024 Taxpayers’ Guide to Education Spending, a tool to help New Jersey residents learn more about the spending practices of their local school district and districts across the state.
“This spending guide has annually provided the public with clear, insightful information on school spending in each district across New Jersey,” said Kevin Dehmer, acting commissioner of education. “By providing transparent data on local school expenditures, the Taxpayers’ Guide to Education Spending serves as a crucial resource for discussions in each of our school communities about how to allocate funds to meet student needs.”
For the 2023-2024 school year, the average budgetary cost per pupil of a New Jersey school district was $20,154. This represents the state average for districts that serve students in preschool through grade 12, charter schools, county vocational school districts and county special services school districts. The budgetary cost per pupil calculation excludes costs that are not directly comparable from district-to-district, such as transportation, payments on school construction debt, and tuition for out-of-district programs. The 2023-2024 budgetary cost per pupil calculation, which is based on districts’ budgeted costs, reflects an increase of $1,753 (9.5%) over districts’ average actual costs from the prior year.
The guide groups school districts by size and the grade levels they serve, and ranks them in 17 categories, such as total administrative costs and total classroom instruction. The guide also includes staffing indicators such as student/teacher ratios and ratios of faculty to administrative staff.
In addition, the Taxpayers’ Guide to Education Spending provides a measure of “Total Spending Per Pupil,” which includes the budgetary costs as well as all other district expenditures, including tuition payments for students sent out of district, transportation for public and nonpublic students, lunch programs covered by student fees and pension payments made by the state on behalf of school districts. The latest available total spending per pupil, which is for the previous school year (2022-2023), is $28,817, an increase of $1,303 (4.7%) from the prior year.
The full reports can be found on the NJDOE’s Taxpayers’ Guide to Education Spending webpage.
