Transparency and Accountability

Each year, the Arizona Auditor General provides a school district spending analysis based on the district’s annual financial report and other sources of district financial data. Throughout the analysis, terms and categories used are from the “United States Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) which prescribes requirements for district and state reporting, providing the ability to compare individual Arizona school districts’ spending to Arizona peer districts’ averages and Arizona’s spending to national averages, as well as monitor Arizona’s and individual Arizona districts’ spending over time. Specifically, total spending represents a district’s combined operational and nonoperational spending which are broken down by their respective areas below. Operational spending, which is the focus of many of the graphics on the state and individual district results pages, includes instructional spending as well as spending for student support, instruction support, administration, plant operations, food service, and transportation.” (Cited from OAG report glossary) Classroom spending is the combination of instructional, student support, and instruction support spending.

In fiscal year 2022–2023, QCUSD demonstrated exemplary fiscal responsibility by maintaining one of the most modest administrative expense levels among its peer group and the state average. This data underscores QCUSD’s efficient management practices, as it indicates a lean administrative structure compared to other district/charter schools. Despite ranking lowest in administrative expenditure, QCUSD further demonstrated its commitment to fiscal prudence by reducing spending in this category from FY22 to FY23. This strategic allocation of resources suggests that, even as QCUSD expands its enrollment and teaching staff, the growth in administrative positions has been carefully managed, allowing for a greater portion of the budget to be directed towards classroom investments.

Based on the Office of the Auditor General, the following is a definition of administrative spending for school districts in Arizona. “Superintendents, principals, business managers, clerical, and other staff who perform accounting, payroll, purchasing, warehousing, printing, human resource activities, and administrative technology services; and other costs related to these services and the governing board.”

Arizona schools are funded on average daily membership (ADM). ADM is the number of days a student is enrolled with the school for the first 100 days of school. For example, if a student enrolls on day 11 of school and remains enrolled for the rest of the year, the school will be funded at .9 for that student because they were enrolled for 90 of the first 100 days.