Comments on: Education spending and the danger of narrow policy thinking

By: Derek H Monson

Derek H Monson — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 22:41:00 +0000

Go to Table 6 (page 12) in the FY 2012 Governor’s Budget Summary. Add the “Current Authorized FY 2011″ public education operations budget ($2,322,061,000) to the “Current Authorized FY 2011″ public education capital budget ($14,500,000). Then divide that sum by the “Total Appropriations” figure for “Current Authorized FY 2011″ at the bottom of Table 6 ($4,710,359,000). You should get $2,336,561,000/$4,710,359,000=49.6% (I rounded to the nearest percent).

You can follow that process to duplicate the rest of the numbers. Though, just to warn you, in some of the older Budget Summaries all of the numbers aren’t in one nice table like they are in the newer Budget Summaries.

By: Cameron

Cameron — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 21:28:00 +0000

I’m looking at page 15 of the Governor’s Budget Summary report and I can’t duplicate your numbers. For 2011 I see an Operations budget of $10,476,304 with total education spending $4,590,913,000, which gives a percentage of 43.8%, as opposed to the 50% that the graph shows. If I use “Total Appropriations” numbers the gap is even wider. Where am I going wrong?

By: Derek H Monson

Derek H Monson — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 20:41:00 +0000

It’s basically state sales and income taxes. It also includes some other minor sources of state revenues, like “sin” taxes (beer, cigarette, and tobacco taxes) and severance taxes, etc.

By: Cameron

Cameron — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 19:36:00 +0000

What is included in the “State Funds” amount used in the graph?