In 2018-19, school districts received more than $11 billion in funding from the state across all k-12 education line items. While the big three k-12 education line items for school districts are basic education funding, retirement reimbursement and special education funding (these line items alone represented nearly $9 billion of the total state funding in 2018-19), school districts receive state funding for transportation, Social Security reimbursement, school construction and several other programs. State funding to school districts and other education agencies are provided by law in Article XXV of the Public School Code.
Click on the image link below to view the various types of state funding/revenue that school districts received in 2018-19 and the percentage of total state revenue to school districts that each state funding source represented in 2018-19.
Click on the image link below to view each state revenue line item as a percentage of total school district expenditures for 2018-19.
The amount of state funding that a school district receives varies dramatically based on multiple factors, including school district and student demographics, ADMs and multiple other data elements. Some school districts receive the bulk of their total revenue from the state while others operate primarily from local sources.
The ratio between state revenue and total revenue is called the State Revenue Ratio. For an example of the wide variation in the State Revenue Ratio, consider the largest 5-year median State Revenue Ratio was 77.66% in the Duquesene City School District--meaning that 77.66% of the school district's total revenue was state revenue. While lowest State Revenue Ratio was 11.28% in the Upper Merion Area School District.
Check out the map below to see your school districts' 5-year median State Revenue Ratios (2011-12 and 2018-19). Our map also includes total state revenues during the 2018-19 year as well as the total budgeted state revenues by school districts in 2018-19.