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Data

Seattle Public Schools spending and enrollment, 2013-14 to 2024-25

General fund spending, enrollment by three measures, spending per student before and after inflation, where the increase went, and revenue minus spending for Seattle Public Schools, with the Washington statewide total for comparison.

Coverage: School years 2013-14 to 2024-25 (actuals); 2025-26 and 2026-27 budgets in the balance table

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What this dataset measures

Built to check a widely shared claim that Seattle Public Schools' budget rose 96% from 2014 to 2025 while enrollment stayed near 48,500. Uses the state's year-end financial records (F-196) for every district so Seattle and the statewide total are measured the same way.

Geography
Seattle, Washington, Washington
Unit of observation
School district and school year
Update cadence
Annual, after OSPI posts F-196 data (December)
Curator
FactHub Research Team

Curated data tables

These related tables form this versioned dataset release. Each table has its own downloadable file and field definitions.

Annual spending, enrollment and prices

One row per school year, 2013-14 to 2024-25.

Unit of observation: School year (September-August)

View this table

seattle-schools-budget-annual.csv text/csv · 2.2 KB (2,278 bytes)
17 field definitions
FieldTypeMeaningUnitsValue type
school_year string School year observed
sps_gf_expenditures number Seattle general fund expenditures, all programs US dollars observed
sps_gf_revenues_and_other_sources number Seattle general fund revenues and other financing sources US dollars observed
sps_enrollment_ospi_per_pupil_basis number Enrollment OSPI uses for per-pupil figures (K-12 FTE plus some special-education and institutional students) students (FTE) observed
sps_k12_headcount_oct_report_card integer October headcount, all grades minus pre-kindergarten; blank for 2013-14 (series starts 2014-15) students observed
sps_prek_headcount_report_card integer October pre-kindergarten headcount; blank for 2013-14 students observed
sps_gf_exp_per_student number General fund expenditures per student US dollars derived
seattle_cpi_u_school_year_avg number Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue CPI-U, average of published months September-August index 1982-84=100 derived
sps_gf_exp_per_student_2024_25_dollars_seattle_cpi number Spending per student in 2024-25 dollars 2024-25 US dollars derived
sps_gf_exp_2024_25_dollars_seattle_cpi number General fund expenditures in 2024-25 dollars 2024-25 US dollars derived
sl_gov_price_index_school_year_avg number BEA state and local government implicit price deflator, Q3-Q2 average index 2017=100 derived
sps_gf_exp_per_student_2024_25_dollars_sl_deflator number Spending per student in 2024-25 dollars using the BEA index 2024-25 US dollars derived
us_cpi_u_school_year_avg number U.S. city average CPI-U, September-August average index 1982-84=100 derived
wa_gf_expenditures number Statewide total general fund expenditures, all districts US dollars observed
wa_enrollment_ospi_per_pupil_basis number Statewide enrollment OSPI uses for per-pupil figures students (FTE) observed
wa_gf_exp_per_student number Statewide general fund expenditures per student US dollars derived
wa_gf_exp_per_student_2024_25_dollars_seattle_cpi number Statewide spending per student in 2024-25 dollars (Seattle CPI-U) 2024-25 US dollars derived

Expenditures by program group

Long format: school year, program group, amount.

Unit of observation: School year x program group

View this table

seattle-schools-budget-by-program.csv text/csv · 5.4 KB (5,516 bytes)
3 field definitions
FieldTypeMeaningUnitsValue type
school_year string School year observed
program_group string Program group (see analysis growth-by-program for codes) derived
amount number General fund expenditures US dollars observed

Expenditures by type of cost

Long format: school year, object group, amount.

Unit of observation: School year x object group

View this table

seattle-schools-budget-by-object.csv text/csv · 4.5 KB (4,604 bytes)
3 field definitions
FieldTypeMeaningUnitsValue type
school_year string School year observed
object_group string F-196 object (salaries, benefits, services, supplies, travel, capital, transfers) observed
amount number General fund expenditures US dollars observed

Revenue by source

Long format: school year, revenue source category, amount.

Unit of observation: School year x revenue category

View this table

seattle-schools-budget-revenue-by-source.csv text/csv · 5.3 KB (5,405 bytes)
3 field definitions
FieldTypeMeaningUnitsValue type
school_year string School year observed
revenue_source string F-196 top-level revenue category (7000, 8000 and 9000 combined) derived
amount number Revenue and other financing sources US dollars observed

K-12 annual average FTE

State-funded K-12 AAFTE as printed in SPS budget books.

Unit of observation: School year

View this table

seattle-schools-budget-aafte.csv text/csv · 358 bytes
4 field definitions
FieldTypeMeaningUnitsValue type
school_year string School year observed
k12_aafte integer K-12 AAFTE excluding Running Start, dropout re-engagement, summer school and F-1 visa students students (FTE) observed
basis string Actual or Budget observed
source_id string Source id observed

Revenue minus spending

General fund revenues and other financing sources minus expenditures.

Unit of observation: School year

View this table

seattle-schools-budget-balance.csv text/csv · 977 bytes
6 field definitions
FieldTypeMeaningUnitsValue type
school_year string School year observed
basis string Actual or Budget observed
revenues_and_other_sources number Revenues and other financing sources US dollars observed
expenditures number Expenditures US dollars observed
difference number Revenues and other sources minus expenditures US dollars derived
source_id string Source id observed

Supporting files

Source snapshots, manifests, quality reports, documentation, and other materials used to produce or review this release.

  • seattle-schools-budget-dataset-parts.json Documentation · application/json · 40.7 KB (41,667 bytes)

    Machine-readable sources, table definitions, events, saved analyses and the attributed statement for this dataset version.

Saved analyses

General fund spending, 2013-14 vs 2024-25

Question: How much did Seattle Public Schools' general fund spending grow from 2013-14 to 2024-25?

Result: General fund spending rose from $611.7 million in 2013-14 to $1,195.9 million in 2024-25, up 95.5%. In 2024-25 dollars (Seattle prices) it rose 33.0%.

Operation: Sum of all general fund expenditure rows (fund 1) reported on form F-196 for district 17001 in each year; percent change between the two years.

Scope: Seattle School District No. 1, general fund, school years 2013-14 and 2024-25 (actuals).

View this analysis

  • General fund only: excludes capital projects, debt service, transportation vehicle and student body funds.
  • Nominal growth includes inflation and enrollment change.

Enrollment by three measures, start and end of the period

Question: Did Seattle Public Schools' enrollment stay about the same from 2013-14 to 2024-25?

Result: K-12 AAFTE was 48,528 in 2013-14 and 48,570 in 2024-25 (+0.1%). OSPI's per-student count rose 1.1% (49,980 to 50,542) after peaking at 55,303 in 2019-20. October K-12 headcount fell 4.1% from 2014-15 to 2024-25.

Operation: Compare three published enrollment counts at the start and end of the period, and record each count's peak year.

Scope: Seattle School District No. 1.

View this analysis

  • AAFTE for 2015-16 to 2021-22 is not in the sources used, so the AAFTE series has gaps.
  • The three measures count different students and are not interchangeable.

General fund spending per student, actual and 2024-25 dollars

Question: How did Seattle Public Schools' spending per student change each year, before and after inflation?

Result: Spending per student rose from $12,239 (2013-14) to $23,661 (2024-25), up 93%. In 2024-25 dollars it rose from $17,987 to $23,661, up 31.5%; it reached $23,613 in 2021-22 and has been roughly flat since.

Operation: General fund expenditures divided by OSPI's per-pupil enrollment for each year; inflation-adjusted series multiplies by the ratio of 2024-25 to that year's school-year average Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue CPI-U.

Scope: Seattle School District No. 1, 2013-14 to 2024-25.

View this analysis

  • The per-pupil denominator includes some special-education preschool headcount and institutional students; it differs slightly from AAFTE.
  • CPI measures consumer prices, not the costs schools pay; see the deflator sensitivity analysis.

Robustness checks

Real growth in spending per student under three price indexes

Question: How sensitive is real per-student growth to the choice of price index?

Result: Prices rose 47.0% (Seattle CPI), 35.4% (U.S. CPI) or 36.2% (state and local government index). Real growth in spending per student was 31.5%, 42.7% or 41.9%.

Operation: Per-student spending growth 2013-14 to 2024-25 divided by each index's growth over the same school years.

Scope: Seattle School District No. 1.

View this analysis

  • None of these indexes measures school costs directly.

Robustness check for: General fund spending per student, actual and 2024-25 dollars

Seattle compared with all Washington districts

Question: Did Seattle's spending grow faster than the statewide total?

Result: Statewide general fund spending also nearly doubled (+95.9%) and per-student spending rose 86.8% ($10,371 to $19,371), 27.1% after Seattle-area inflation. Seattle per student rose 93.3% and in 2024-25 was 22% above the state average.

Operation: Same calculations for the statewide total of district general fund expenditures and OSPI's statewide per-pupil enrollment.

Scope: Washington public school districts, charter and tribal schools, 2013-14 and 2024-25.

View this analysis

  • Statewide totals include districts with very different costs and enrollment trends.

Where the increase went, by program

Question: Which programs account for the growth in Seattle's general fund spending from 2013-14 to 2024-25?

Result: Basic education accounted for 35.5% of the increase (+$207.5 million) and special education 31.9% (+$186.4 million). Special education spending rose from $85.9 million to $272.3 million, 3.2 times as much.

Operation: Sum expenditures by OSPI program code into groups; change and share of the total increase ($584.2 million).

Scope: Seattle School District No. 1 general fund.

View this analysis

  • Program grouping is FactHub's; OSPI added or renumbered some codes during the period.

Where the increase went, by type of cost

Question: How much of the growth was pay and benefits?

Result: Salaries and benefits made up 81% of the increase: certificated salaries 42.2%, classified salaries 19.3%, benefits 19.5%. Purchased services added 17.9%.

Operation: Sum expenditures by F-196 object code; change and share of the total increase.

Scope: Seattle School District No. 1 general fund.

View this analysis

  • Object codes show what was bought, not why; they don't separate raises from added staff.

General fund revenue by source

Question: Where did the extra money come from?

Result: State general-purpose funding rose from $267.2 million to $569.8 million and state special-purpose funding from $82.4 million to $231.8 million. Local levy revenue rose 16%, from $162.6 million to $189.4 million, after dropping in 2018-19 and 2019-20.

Operation: Sum revenue codes 1000-9000 (top-level categories) by year.

Scope: Seattle School District No. 1 general fund, 2013-14, 2018-19 and 2024-25.

View this analysis

  • Other financing sources include interfund loans and transfers, which are not new revenue.

Revenue minus spending by year

Question: When did Seattle's general fund start spending more than it took in?

Result: The general fund took in $38.1 million more than it spent in 2018-19. It spent $23.7 million more than it took in during 2024-25 and budgeted a $89.9 million shortfall for 2025-26 and $21.2 million for 2026-27.

Operation: Revenues and other financing sources minus expenditures; actuals from F-196, 2025-26 and 2026-27 from the adopted budget.

Scope: Seattle School District No. 1 general fund, 2013-14 to 2026-27.

View this analysis

  • 2025-26 and 2026-27 are budgets, not actuals.
  • 2024-25 other financing sources include an interfund loan; revenue alone fell $66.0 million short of spending.

Statements on record

Exact quotes, unaltered, with what surrounded them, the primary source, and an archived copy of it.

Seattle Public School Spending doubled, the class roster didn't. Olympia calls that underfunding. 2014: $611M budget, 48,529 students. 2025: $1.2B, 48,570 students. The budget went up 96%. Enrollment went up 41 kids. And somehow the answer is a new income tax. YES on I-645.

PNW Conservative (@PNWConservative), Anonymous political account on X Post on X · · Assertion

Context: The full text of the post, written the week before the November 2026 vote on Initiative 645, which would repeal Washington's new income tax on income over $1 million. It argues Seattle schools' spending growth shows a new income tax is not needed. It had about 2,000 views when read on November 3, 2026.

Source: @PNWConservative on X

Sources

  1. Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) Annual school district financial statements (F-196): general fund expenditures by program and object, revenues by source, and the enrollment OSPI uses for per-pupil figures. 10-year workbook (https://ospi.k12.wa.us/sites/default/files/2025-12/10_year_f-196_data_2024-25.xlsx) for 2014-15 to 2024-25; 2013-14 and detail rows from the SAFS F-196 data files (https://ospi.k12.wa.us/safs-data-files).

    Retrieved November 3, 2026. Washington State public record. Public government data; derived tables redistributed with attribution.

    Reliability: Government. OSPI compiles the year-end financial statements every Washington school district must file (form F-196). Figures are as reported by the district; OSPI publishes them without audit adjustment.

  2. OSPI Financial Reporting Summary, Section One Statewide general fund expenditures and per-pupil spending by year, 2014-15 to 2024-25 (2013-14 from the 2022-23 edition: https://ospi.k12.wa.us/sites/default/files/2023-12/2022-23_section_one_statewideaveragefinancialtablesandcharts.pdf).

    Retrieved November 3, 2026. Washington State public record. Public government document.

    Reliability: Government. OSPI summary of all districts' F-196 reports; used here for the statewide comparison. Its per-pupil enrollment counts K-12 FTE plus some special-education and institutional students.

  3. OSPI Report Card enrollment (data.wa.gov) October headcount by grade for Seattle School District No. 1, 2014-15 to 2024-25; 2025-26 from https://data.wa.gov/d/wvqy-yp3m.

    Retrieved November 3, 2026. Washington State open data. Public open data.

    Reliability: Government. Headcount of students enrolled on the October count date, as districts report it to OSPI. Earliest year in this series is 2014-15.

  4. Seattle Public Schools 2026-27 Budget Book 2024-25 actual and 2025-26 and 2026-27 budgeted general fund totals; K-12 AAFTE 2022-23 to 2026-27; fund balance outlook.

    Retrieved November 3, 2026. Public record. Public document; figures quoted with attribution.

    Reliability: Party to the dispute. The district's own adopted budget. SPS argues the state underfunds it, but these figures are its audited actuals and adopted budgets, which match OSPI's records.

  5. Seattle Public Schools Adopted Budget 2015-2016 (copy) 2013-14 actual general fund summary (F-195 format) and 2013-14 actual K-12 AAFTE.

    Retrieved November 3, 2026. Public record. Public document; figures quoted with attribution.

    Reliability: Party to the dispute. SPS no longer posts this book on its site; this copy is kept by a parent-run data project. Its 2013-14 totals match OSPI's F-196 records to the dollar.

  6. Seattle Public Schools Adopted Budget 2016-2017 (copy) K-12 AAFTE 2012-13 to 2014-15 with kindergarten shown at half-day and state-funded full-day kindergarten separately.

    Retrieved November 3, 2026. Public record. Public document; figures quoted with attribution.

    Reliability: Party to the dispute. District budget book copy kept by a parent-run data project; AAFTE figures are from OSPI report 1251.

  7. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, CPI-U Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue CPI-U (CUURS49DSA0, bimonthly) and U.S. city average CPI-U (CUUR0000SA0), averaged over each September-August school year.

    Retrieved November 3, 2026. Public domain (U.S. government work). Public domain.

    Reliability: Government. Official consumer price index. The Seattle index is published for even months only.

  8. U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis via FRED Implicit price deflator for state and local government consumption and investment (quarterly), averaged Q3 to Q2 for each school year; used as a sensitivity check.

    Retrieved November 3, 2026. Public domain (U.S. government work). Public domain.

    Reliability: Government. National index of the prices state and local governments pay, dominated by employee compensation; not specific to Washington or schools.

  9. @PNWConservative on X The post rated in the companion fact check.

    Retrieved November 3, 2026. Quoted for commentary. Quotation only.

    Reliability: Advocacy group. Has a stake in this finding. Anonymous political account; the post argues for Initiative 645.

Limitations and reproducibility

Reproducible from public sources: Every figure comes from public OSPI files, SPS budget books, BLS and BEA. Sum the F-196 general fund rows for district 17001 by year (or read the OSPI 10-year workbook), divide by OSPI's per-pupil enrollment, and deflate with the September-August average of the Seattle CPI-U.

  • General fund only; capital and debt-service funds are excluded.
  • 2013-14 kindergarten FTE was counted mostly at half-day, which understates 2013-14 enrollment relative to later years.
  • Price indexes measure consumer or government prices broadly, not school costs specifically.
  • Budget-year figures (2025-26, 2026-27) can change at year end.

Publications using this dataset

Version details

The exact citing versions, and the version of this dataset each cites.

  • Article seattle-schools-budget-doubled — version 1 (published) cites version 1
  • Chart seattle-schools-spending-per-student — version 1 (published) cites version 1
  • Chart seattle-schools-spending-increase-by-program — version 1 (published) cites version 1

Node: dataset:seattle-schools-spending-enrollment