FactHub

Analysis

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

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

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

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

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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

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 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

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:1:analysis:per-student-trend