The Dysart Unified School District Governing Board heard the auditor general’s district spending report for 2017 their March 15 regular meeting at the Nathaniel Dysart Education Center, 15802 N Parkview Place.

Executive Director of Business Services Jack Eaton presented the spending report categorized by operational area.

Instruction is the area of which the district spends the largest amount, totaling 56.2 percent.

Their peer group includes very large unified and union high school districts in cities and suburbs, including Chandler, Gilbert, Deer Valley, Paradise Valley, Mesa, Phoenix Scottsdale and Tucson school districts.

The percentage of monies spent on instruction amongst the group averaged 56.4 percent last year.

To measure efficiency relative to peer averages, the categories were measured by labels of very low, low, comparable, high and very high.

Plant operations for the district comprised 11.4 percent of expenditures, followed by student support oat 9.2 percent. The district ranked as "comparable" with its peers in this category, with $6.07 at cost per square foot and food service cost per meal equivalent of $2.85.

For administration, the cost per pupil was $661, with the peer average at $680 and the state average at $844.

Transportation for the district runs at $4.52 per mile and $1,550 per rider, compared to the state average of $3.84 and $1,198, both of which were designated as very high.

"I have run out of tools, but have a few causes for these transportation issues," Mr. Eaton said. "As charter schools open, we lose bus riders and we get paid on riders and miles. We still have to get kids to those schools and special education transportation is a big area for us."

Mr. Eaton said over half the bus routes are specifically boarding kids with special needs door-to-door. He said the district’s percentage of special education is higher than peers and the state average, because the charter schools do not take special education students.

Comparing the districts grouped by transportation peer group and ranked by cost per mile and cost per ride, Dysart was listed 15 out of 16.

"This is criteria they use for districts traveling 291-360 miles and I don’t like to be at the bottom of that list, but I can assure you we are trying to keep those costs down and still meet our transportation needs," Mr. Eaton said.

For per-pupil spending by operational area, the district total was $7,302, broken down to instructional spending at $4,106 and non-instructional spending at $3,196. The state average is $4,377 on instructional spending and $3,764 on non-instructional.

Student-teacher measures includes an attendance rate of 95 percent and graduation rate is 91 percent from 2016, with the state average at 80 percent.

The average teacher salary for the district is $51,181 with $6,357 from Proposition 301 monies, compared to the state average of $48,372.

The average years of teacher experience for Dysart is 9.1, with the peer and state average at 11.3 percent, meaning 20 percent of district teachers are in their first three years of instruction.

"The financial stress assessment of the district is low from 2015 to 2017," Mr. Eaton said. "The change in number of district students had a large decrease."