The revenues and expenditures of a school district are divided into many different funds such as; general fund, permanent improvement fund, lunch fund, bond retirement fund and many individual funds for specific state and federal grants. The general fund or “operating fund” is the largest and most important fund of the district.
So what are the districts operating costs? A school district is basically a service organization. We are here to educate the leaders of tomorrow. In order to do that, most of our operating costs are for salaries and benefits to pay the people who perform the services. Teachers of course are the largest portion of this cost, but also needed are the bus drivers to transport the students, the custodians to clean the buildings, administrators and others.
A typical school district spends between 80% and 85% of their operating funds on these salaries and benefits. The remaining 20% of our operating costs includes the heating, lighting, phone service, trash disposal and water for all of our buildings; fuel, tires and maintenance of our buses; the purchase of new buses; soap, toilet paper and cleaning supplies for all of the buildings; textbooks, copy paper and other educational supplies; library books and computer software; annual audit costs for the district; fees to the county auditor for collecting our tax money; and liability and property insurance.