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Comparative Cost Per Member and Comparative Revenue Per Member


Section D of Multi-Year Edition of Basic Facts

In cooperation with the Wisconsin Association of School Business Officials Accounting Committee, the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) School Financial Services Team has developed several revenue and cost "benchmarks" that can be used for informational and general analysis purposes. Data has been taken from audited Annual Reports submitted to the DPI by local districts. Revenue and cost measures, by themselves, cannot indicate the extent or quality of a particular district's educational program. Users of this data are encouraged to pursue the reasons for revenue and cost differences between districts.

Comparative Revenue Per Member

The Comparative Revenue Per Member is a calculation that compares revenues received by districts from four sources: federal, state, local property tax, and local miscellaneous. (See below for Comparative Cost Per Member.)

All files are Excel Excel document

Accounts used in calculation:

Multi-Year Data files:

4-Year Longitudinal Comparative Revenue Summary Computation

4-Year Longitudinal Comparative Revenue Detailed Computation

Single-Year Data files:

Comparative Cost Per Member

Cost can differ from one district to another or from one year to another. There may be several reasons for this variance - educational programming, pupil transportation requirements, increases or decreases in debt service expenditures, or having food and community service operations. Reliance on a single cost determination, which may not be representative for all school districts, can lead to erroneous conclusions. The following "comparable" cost measures were developed to limit or identify the effects of various factors that contribute to cost variances:

  • Total Current Educational Cost (TCEC) This measure attempts to identify overall instructional and instructional support service costs attributable to district resident students. It can generally be described as the cost of the district's General and Special Project funds, excluding transportation and facility acquisition expenditures, less inter-fund transfers and revenues for instructional services the district provides to non-resident pupils such as tuition receipts, CESA and cooperative agreements, and state inter-district integration aid
  • Total Education Cost (TEC) This is the TCEC plus transportation, expenditures for facility acquisitions charged to the General, Special Project, and Capital Expansion (Tax Levy Financed "Sinking") funds, and debt service principal and interest.
  • Total District Cost (TDC) This is TEC plus food and community service costs. It should be noted that food and community service activities are usually funded with fees and other program revenue, requiring little or no property tax subsidy.

In order to appropriately align the district cost with district resident membership (as defined in "Membership" below), the following methodology modifies district reported expenditures and revenues to reflect the actual cost to the district for the education of its resident students:

All files are Excel Excel document

Accounts used in calculation:

Multi-Year Data files:

4-Year Longitudinal Comparative Cost Summary Computation

4-Year Longitudinal Comparative Cost Detailed Computation

Single-Year Data files:

Membership

The pupil "membership" data used in the Comparative Revenue and Comparative Cost calculations below is based on district resident pupil counts and does not reflect the actual number of pupils (resident and non-resident) in attendance in a district. The pupil "membership" as used here is the average of the full time equivalency (FTE) of resident pupils on the third Friday in September and the second Friday in January, plus the FTE for summer school, group/foster home, and part time attendance pupils.

Historical Information About Cost Comparables

During the early 1980s, the Complete Annual School Cost (CASC) statistic was developed to provide a numeric measure for inter-district cost comparisons. The original CASC calculation was the cumulative total of the gross cost of the general, special project, debt service, and food service funds, plus the net cost of the capital projects fund. Historically, CASC had been reported on a resident per member basis. (Membership is defined as resident enrollment adjusted for full-time equivalency.)

Over time, K-12 educational programming and manner of delivery have become increasingly varied. Whereas in 1980, it was generally expected that a K-12 student would be educated in the district of residence, today's K-12 student may be participating in any one of a variety of educational programs including Open Enrollment and Special Transfer Integration Program (Milwaukee Area). As the diversity of education delivery methods increased, the original CASC methodology grew to be outdated. In an increasing number of cases, by the late 1990's, the cost to educate certain children was no longer accurately represented in the district actually incurring the cost. This resulted in the development and implementation of new measures during the 1999-00 school year.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE "OLD" CASC IS NOT COMPARABLE TO THE "NEW" COMPARATIVE COST MEASURE.

Access Complete Annual School Cost (CASC) data from 1982-83 through 1998-99.


For questions about this information, contact dpifin@dpi.wi.gov (608) 267-9114

Last updated on 7/24/2008 2:47:10 PM
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  State Superintendent of Public Instruction Elizabeth Burmaster
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