For Once, I'm On The Same Page With Politifact.
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I've been saying for quite some time that the schools in Portland spend between $14,000-$15,000 per student per year.
Well someone else made the same claim, and Politifact did some fact checking. Here's what they came up with:
The best historical numbers we have are state figures that show that Portland Public Schools in 2010-11 spent $11,830 per pupil. (The same report shows capital outlay per student was about $400, and $777 statewide.)
Now, let’s go back to Portland Public Schools’ 2012-13 adopted budget. If you add together salaries, benefits, materials and services -- in other words, take out debt, capital and contingencies-- you get nearly $542 million. Divide that by the number of students and we end up at $11,459 per student. Again, we think that’s pretty close to $12,000.
With debt and capital -- the way McIntire and some others think is more accurate -- the number would be more than $12,000. It would be anywhere from $13,200 (without contingency and ending fund balance) to $14,100 (if those categories are included) to $15,000 (if he is correctly adding education service district costs to the budget).
Now, let’s go back to Portland Public Schools’ 2012-13 adopted budget. If you add together salaries, benefits, materials and services -- in other words, take out debt, capital and contingencies-- you get nearly $542 million. Divide that by the number of students and we end up at $11,459 per student. Again, we think that’s pretty close to $12,000.
With debt and capital -- the way McIntire and some others think is more accurate -- the number would be more than $12,000. It would be anywhere from $13,200 (without contingency and ending fund balance) to $14,100 (if those categories are included) to $15,000 (if he is correctly adding education service district costs to the budget).
I've never been a huge fan of Politifact, but, today, we're on the same page.
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