Budget Development and Planning - Comparative Cost

In cooperation with the Wisconsin Association of School Business Officials Accounting Committee, the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) School Financial Services Team has developed several cost "benchmarks" that can be used for informational and general analysis purposes.

Cost measures, themselves, cannot indicate the extent or quality of a particular district's educational program. Users of this data are encouraged to pursue the reasons for cost differences between districts.

Please contact a school finance consultant should you have further questions.

---

Comparative Cost Pie Charts, 2006-07 Annual Report Data

The links below allows users to create pie charts using the 2006-07 audited Annual Report data, as rolled up into 2006-07 Comparative Cost breakdowns. Note that single-year comparisons between districts may be misleading if any of the districts in question incurred an unusual expense in 2006-07. Users are encouraged to research the reasons behind data anomalies before using these charts.

The 8-District worksheet prints on 2 pages, 4 pie charts/data tables to 1 page. Given the variability of expenditure data across districts, data label placement within the pie chart for some districts may be less than optimal. Should you wish to adjust the data label placement on any pie chart, the worksheet will allow for this as is has been left unprotected. Click once on the label to be adjusted. Click a second time and hold over the identified label until a grey-lined box appears around the label. Release the mouse button and point/click the mouse at the box edge, dragging to the desired position.

8-District Comparative Cost Pie & Data Charts

Single District Comparative Cost Pie & Data Chart

---

Comparative Cost Homepage - Includes detailed explanation and Single-Year/4-Year Longitudinal Comparative Cost Data

---

For questions about this information, contact dpifin@dpi.wi.gov (608) 267-9114

Last updated on 8/4/2008 3:28:23 PM