Where is schools' money?

All the hand-wringing over cash-strapped schools doesn't seem to wash with budget numbers.

The state's public education budget has increased 60 percent, to slightly less than $2 billion, in the past 10 years, State Office of Education data show.

At the same time, enrollment grew by about 3.5 percent. That indicates the state had extra money to spread around.

But the numbers are more complex than they appear and are best interpreted with a slice of history, says Patrick Ogden, associate state superintendent over budgeting.

"We are in such a deep hole that the money we've received in the past has just gone in to fill in that hole a little bit," Ogden said.

Money is central to the public debate on education.

Utah for years has been in last place in the country in per-pupil spending. Teachers say they spend hundreds of dollars of their own money on items such as bulletin boards, paper and crayons for their students, and some leave for better-paying jobs.

But money for schools has increased over the past decade.

Ten years ago, the minimum school program, the crux of the education budget, was $1.25 billion. This year, the minimum school program totals slightly less than $2 billion.

At the same time, enrollment grew from 468,675 students to about 485,000 students, with the latter figure estimated by the Governor's Office of Planning and Budget. That's a 3.5-percent increase.

Relatively flat enrollments allowed Utah's average per-student expenditure to grow by 60 percent, from $2,941 per student in 1993-1994 to $4,706 in 2001-2002, the most recent data available from the State Office of Education.

At the same time, the nation's average per-student expenditure grew 41 percent, from $5,327 to $7,524.

A direct comparison of the two shows Utah's per-student spending went from 55.2 percent of national average to 62.5 percent of the national average.

Also, class size dropped an average of four students in the past 10 years. Utah's average student-to-teacher ratio, still the nation's highest, is now 20.5-to-1, Ogden said.

Utah had a humming economy in the late 1990s, helping bring in more income-tax revenues — all of which go to education.