New York City public schools: spending, fiscal years 2016 to 2025

Per-pupil spending in New York City public schools: where the money goes

Among the 100 largest school districts in the United States, New York City spent the most per pupil in fiscal year (FY) 2024, the latest year the U.S. Census Bureau has published. This page starts with what that money pays for, then shows how the figure is built, how much of its growth comes from inflation and shrinking enrollment and where the department's budget goes. The figures come from the Census Bureau, the New York City Independent Budget Office (IBO), the City Council's Finance Division, the Department of Education (DOE), the New York State Education Department (NYSED), the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). Two sections also carry figures reported by Chalkbeat, boxed and labeled. City fiscal years run July to June, so FY2024 is the 2023-24 school year.

$41.6B
Total DOE spending, FY2025
$34.5 billion in operating spending plus $7.0 billion in pensions, debt service and other health care costs managed outside the department's budget. Dollars as spent. Source: IBO, Oct. 6, 2026.
$35,796
Per pupil, district schools only, FY2024
Census Bureau current spending per pupil, Table 18, released May 2026. Excludes charter schools, capital outlay and debt service.
#1
Among 100 largest U.S. districts
First in every year from FY2016 through FY2024 except FY2021, when Boston ranked first. Boston, no longer among the 100 largest, spent $39,929 per pupil in FY2024. National average FY2024: $17,619. Source: Census Bureau.
-13.9%
District enrollment, FY2016 to FY2024
From 981,667 to 845,509 pupils, the Census enrollment count behind the per-pupil figure.

What the money pays for

Two current official sources break New York City's per-pupil spending into what it pays for. The New York State Education Department's financial transparency reports cover 2024-25 and split each category into salaries, employee benefits and everything else. The Census Bureau's survey splits the same FY2024 figure used in Sections 1 and 2 and compares it with the national average. Each source sorts costs into its own categories and counts slightly different things, so their lines do not match one for one. DOE's own school-level breakdown, the School Based Expenditure Report, has not been published since FY2018 (last edition).

2024-25: $35,058 per pupil, by function and by type of cost (NYSED)

Source: New York State Education Department, 2024-25 Financial Transparency Report, New York City districtwide column (shown on every NYC school's report; for example, P.S. 307's), under the state's business rules. Actual spending in all traditional public schools divided by their October 2024 pre-K-12 enrollment. Excludes charter school tuition, debt service and other exclusions such as services to private schools and pre-K payments to community-based organizations. The state reports 12 functions; this chart combines "instruction" with "support services, instructional staff" ($520), and puts general administration ($257), business and central services ($1,796) and "districtwide current operations" ($1,368, mostly employee benefits not assigned to a function) in the last bar. The three-school box below uses the same seven groups. Dollars as spent.
Most of the money is people. Salaries ($17,157) and employee benefits ($10,154) were $27,311 of the $35,058, or 78 percent. Instruction was 54 percent of the total ($18,944), pupil support such as counseling, therapy and health services 15 percent ($5,116) and school administration 6 percent ($2,030). Building operation and maintenance ($2,984) and transportation ($1,733) are mostly purchased services, contracts, utilities and supplies rather than DOE salaries.

FY2024: $35,796 per pupil, compared with the U.S. average (Census)

Function, per pupil, FY2024New York CityU.S. average
Instruction$26,092$10,346
  Salaries$13,742$6,293
  Employee benefits$7,957$2,764
  Other instructional spending$4,394$1,289
Pupil support$75$1,229
Instructional staff support$362$916
General administration$584$351
School administration$1,572$946
Building operation and maintenance$3,313$3,140 combined
Student transportation$2,044
Business, central and other support services$1,100
Food services and other$652$691
Total current spending per pupil$35,796$17,619

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2024 Annual Survey of School System Finances: Table 18 and the district file for New York City (NCESID 3620580); Table 8 for the U.S. (summary tables). New York City's lines come from the district file and add exactly to Table 18's $35,796. As in Table 18, instruction excludes payments to charter and private schools. Table 8 does not split the U.S. average's other support services, so those three lines are combined for the U.S. column. Census notes that New York City reports guidance counselors under instruction, which is one reason its pupil-support line is $75 here and $5,116 in the state's figures. Salaries and benefits are 70 percent of the Census total for New York City and 79 percent for the U.S.

How the two fit together. The state and Census figures are close in size ($35,058 and $35,796) but are not the same measure: they cover different years, use different enrollment counts (state: October 2024 pre-K-12 enrollment; Census: the federal Common Core of Data count) and assign costs to functions differently. IBO's budget-line data (Section 6) cover the whole department in total dollars, not per pupil, and do not map one-to-one to these functions.
Closer look

Three Brooklyn schools, one budget at a time

Citywide averages hide a wide range. Here are three public schools within about two miles of each other: P.S. 307 Daniel Hale Williams (209 York St., Vinegar Hill, District 13), P.S. 321 William Penn (180 Seventh Ave., Park Slope, District 15) and P.S. K369 Coy L. Cox School, a District 75 school for students with significant disabilities, headquartered at 383 State St. in Boerum Hill. Its FY2026 budget places staff at 11 sites.

P.S. 307P.S. 321P.S. 369 (D75)All DOE schools
Students, 2025-262771,332488
Students with disabilities43%19%100%
Students in poverty83%6%90%
Students in 3-K or pre-K46690
Actual spending per pupil, 2024-25$52,349$26,129$123,090$35,058
  Salaries$25,843$13,068$63,514$17,157
  Employee benefits$14,711$8,026$34,426$10,154
  Everything else (busing, supplies, contracts, utilities)$11,795$5,035$25,150$7,747
Where that ranksAbove 97% of district schoolsAbove 4% of district schoolsAbove 67% of D75 schools
Actual spending per pupil, 2024-25, by function. The same seven groups as the districtwide chart above; hover for the salary, benefit and other split. Building operation and maintenance ($3,014) and food services ($836) are identical at all three schools, and central administration and other districtwide costs nearly so ($3,272 to $3,519), because DOE spreads those costs across schools per pupil rather than measuring them building by building. Instruction, pupil support, school administration and transportation are where the schools differ. Dollars as spent. Per-pupil amounts use the state's October 2024 enrollment counts (278, 1,306 and 497 students).

What the spending pays for. P.S. 307 spent about twice as much per pupil as P.S. 321 in 2024-25. Most of the difference is in three lines: instruction ($27,649 vs. $14,570 per pupil), pupil support services such as counseling, therapy and health ($9,573 vs. $3,302) and transportation ($5,370 vs. $70). P.S. 307 is about a fifth the size of P.S. 321, and a larger share of its students have disabilities. P.S. 369 spent $123,090 per pupil, including $19,985 on transportation. District 75 schools are funded on a class model, not through Fair Student Funding (Section 7). The data show these differences side by side; they do not apportion the gap among causes, and neither does this page. Salaries and benefits make up 78 to 81 percent of spending at all three schools and citywide.

Who is on each school's payroll, FY2026 budget

Budgeted positions, 2025-26P.S. 307P.S. 321P.S. 369 (D75)
Teachers (classroom, subject and special education classes)339191
Speech, occupational and physical therapy, ESL, counselors, psychologists and social workers171746
Paraprofessionals1828147
Principal, assistant principals, deans, secretaries and office staff4823
Students per teacher position8.414.65.4
Budget charged to the school, per pupil$32,386$12,996$57,023

From each school's Galaxy budget, DOE's school budgeting system, as of June 25, 2026. Positions are budget lines. Coaches (two positions each at P.S. 307 and P.S. 369) are not in the rows above. Per-pupil amounts use 2025-26 enrollment. The per-pupil budget includes substitutes, after-school pay, supplies and $650,609 at P.S. 307 for staff who left partway through the year. It covers what the school itself is charged. Most employee benefits, central costs and busing are paid centrally and are not in it, which is why it is lower than actual spending.

Can you get each building's actual personnel costs? Only partly. The state reports above give each school's actual salary and benefit spending per pupil, by function. Galaxy lists every budgeted position at a school, but DOE's glossary says the budget amount "is not necessarily a person's actual salary": most teachers are charged at the school's average teacher salary, and related-service providers, evaluators and IEP paraprofessionals at a citywide average. Lines paid from grants include fringe benefits; others do not. The city's payroll dataset lists DOE employees by title and pay but not by school; nearly all are recorded with a Manhattan work location. No public file links individual salaries to a building.

Sources: NYSED, 2024-25 Financial Transparency Reports for P.S. 307, P.S. 321 and P.S. 369, including the districtwide column, with the state's business rules; the per-pupil totals exclude charter school tuition, debt service and other exclusions. Ranks: NYSED report card database 2024-25 (SRC2025.zip, table "Expenditures per Pupil"), compared with 1,531 district schools in the 32 geographic districts (median $34,254; charter schools left out) or 60 District 75 schools (median $112,990). Enrollment, disability and poverty shares: DOE Demographic Snapshot, 2025-26. Positions and school budgets: DOE Galaxy Budget Summaries, FY2026 (enter K307, K321 or K369), and DOE's budget summary glossary. Payroll: Citywide Payroll Data (Fiscal Year), NYC Open Data. Saved copies of every page and the scripts that produced these figures are in this project's data folder.

1. The long climb: district schools only, measured the same way each year

One definition throughout: the Census Bureau's current spending per pupil for the New York City School District, from its Annual Survey of School System Finances. Current spending covers day-to-day costs, including salaries, health insurance and pension contributions. Census leaves out charter schools (both their students and the department's payments to them), payments to private schools, capital outlay and debt service. Enrollment is the fall count of students in DOE schools reported to the federal Common Core of Data, which includes some pre-K pupils. Toggle between per-pupil and total district spending, and between dollars as spent and dollars adjusted for inflation.

Use the inflation toggle. In dollars as spent, per-pupil spending rose 48.5 percent between FY2016 and FY2024 and the district spending behind it rose 27.9 percent. In constant FY2024 dollars, per-pupil spending rose 18.5 percent and total spending rose 2.1 percent: $29.64 billion in FY2016 against $30.27 billion in FY2024, below the FY2022 peak of $33.62 billion. Split the 48.5 percent rise into its parts and a little under three-fifths is inflation, about two-fifths is the shrinking student count and about one-twentieth is more money after inflation.
The FY2022 spike and the FY2023 dip. Per-pupil spending rose 20 percent in FY2022, to $35,914 from $29,931, as current spending rose 13 percent and enrollment fell 5.9 percent. It fell to $33,387 in FY2023 before returning to $35,796 in FY2024. Both moves are in the published Census series. In constant FY2024 dollars, per-pupil spending peaked at $39,111 in FY2022 and has not returned to that level. IBO's figures show federal aid to the department nearly doubling in FY2022, to $6.1 billion from $3.3 billion (in 2025 dollars), as pandemic relief arrived, then falling; neither source assigns the swing to a single cause. Charter schools are outside this series. The Census survey excludes charter schools whose charters are held by nongovernmental entities, which describes New York's. The y-axis does not start at zero by default, which visually amplifies year-to-year movement; use the toggle to see the zero-baseline version.

2. Why the line goes up: enrollment fell too

Per-pupil spending is a ratio, and both parts move. Between FY2016 and FY2024, Census-reported district enrollment fell from 981,667 to 845,509 (-13.9 percent). The district spending behind the per-pupil figure rose from $23.67 billion to $30.27 billion in dollars as spent (+27.9 percent), but in constant FY2024 dollars from $29.64 billion to $30.27 billion, a rise of just 2.1 percent. Set against a 13.9 percent enrollment decline, that explains most of the rise in per-pupil spending.

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, Annual Survey of School System Finances, Table 18, New York City row, each year's own release. Enrollment is the Table 18 enrollment column, which Census footnotes as fall membership from the federal Common Core of Data, with charter schools excluded. Total district current spending is the Table 18 per-pupil figure times that enrollment, which equals the Census numerator: current spending minus payments to charter and private schools. Constant dollars use the consumer price index for all urban consumers (CPI-U), New York-Newark-Jersey City, averaged over each July-June fiscal year. Both y-axes are zoomed by default; use the toggle to start them at zero.
Once you adjust for inflation, there is little numerator growth left to explain. Real district spending rose 2.1 percent across nine years while real per-pupil spending rose 18.5 percent. The difference is the denominator: fewer students dividing a nearly constant pot. Had enrollment stayed at its FY2016 level, FY2024's spending would have come to $30,831 per pupil instead of $35,796; measured that way, fewer students account for 42 percent of the nominal per-pupil rise (33 percent measured the other way) and about 87 to 89 percent of the real rise. New York City is spending about the same inflation-adjusted amount on its district schools as in FY2016, on substantially fewer children.
Two notes on this comparison. First, the total here is the numerator Census itself divides by enrollment, so per-pupil spending times enrollment reproduces it exactly. Census Table 16 prints a larger "current spending" figure ($34.97 billion in FY2024) because it also includes $4.33 billion in payments to charter and private schools and $0.38 billion for adult education and other programs outside kindergarten through 12th grade. An earlier version of this page used the Table 16 figure and concluded, wrongly, that Census computes per-pupil amounts on an unpublished pupil base; the difference is in the numerator, not the denominator. Second, the inflation adjustment uses the New York-area CPI-U, the same regional index IBO uses. The national CPI-U, which an earlier version of this page used, gives a 14.3 percent real rise in per-pupil spending and a 1.6 percent real decline in total spending. School costs are mostly wages, so a wage-based index could show a different real trend.

3. The charter sector, which the spending data leaves out

The Census series above excludes charter schools entirely. They are separate local education agencies under New York law, but they enroll New York City children and are funded with public money, so leaving them out understates how many students the city's public system serves. Between 2012-13 and 2025-26, charter enrollment in New York City grew from 58,493 to 148,847 (+154 percent), while district enrollment fell from 985,388 to 809,873 (-17.8 percent). The number of charter school locations in the state file rose from 159 to 285. Figures for 2025-26 are from NYSED's final release (data as of Aug. 22, 2026).

Source: New York State Education Department (NYSED), Basic Educational Data System (BEDS) Day enrollment files, school-level "All Students" tables, each school year's own release. Figures are the sum of pre-K-12 enrollment for all schools located in the five New York City counties (Bronx, Kings, New York, Queens, Richmond), split by NYSED's own field classifying each school as public or charter. District counts include pre-K pupils in district school buildings (about 22,000 to 38,000 a year) but not children at community-based pre-K centers. Every non-charter school in these counties belongs to a DOE district, including District 75. Charter counts are school locations as listed by NYSED. The 2023-24 uptick in district enrollment comes from pre-K in school buildings; district K-12 enrollment fell that year. Stacked areas sum to total public school enrollment in New York City, including charters. The y-axis starts at zero.
Counting both sectors changes the size of the decline, but does not explain it. From 2012-13 to 2025-26 the district lost 175,515 students while charters gained 90,354. Adding the two together, total public enrollment in New York City fell 8.2 percent rather than the 17.8 percent the district figure alone shows. That is an arithmetic point about which students the Census series counts, not a finding that charter growth caused the district decline.
Why this chart cannot tell you where students went. The two lines are counts, not flows. A child enrolling in a charter kindergarten was never in a district school to begin with, so charter growth is not the same as students transferring out of the district. District enrollment also fell for reasons this chart does not measure at all: fewer births in the city, families moving out and shifts to private schooling or homeschooling. No source on this page apportions the district decline among those causes, and this page does not attempt to.

Comparability caveats. These NYSED counts are BEDS Day (fall snapshot) enrollment and do not match the Census enrollment used in the charts above, which comes from the federal Common Core of Data. For the same school year, the Census district count is higher by between about 1,500 and 22,500 students, depending on the year. NYSED school years are labeled by span (2025-26); Census fiscal years are labeled by end year. This chart shows enrollment only. It does not show charter per-pupil spending, which comes from a different funding stream and is not reported in the Census district series or in the IBO breakdowns below.

4. Hold harmless: when enrollment falls but the budget doesn't

The two sections above show enrollment falling. This section is about what the city decided to do with school budgets while that happened. Under the city's Fair Student Funding formula, a school's budget follows its students: fewer students should mean a smaller allocation. Every year since FY2021, the city has softened or suspended that consequence for schools that lost students. The policy is called "hold harmless," and it is one reason per-pupil spending has climbed at schools that are shrinking.

How it works, step by step

  1. In spring, every school is given a budget for the coming year based on projected enrollment, run through the Fair Student Funding formula: a foundation amount for each school, plus an amount per student weighted by grade level, with added weights for students who need academic intervention, English language learners, students with disabilities, students in temporary housing and schools with a concentration of high-need students.
  2. Spring protection (hold harmless proper). Since FY2024, DOE has guaranteed that each school starts the year with at least as much as it started the prior year. The city comptroller describes this as ensuring "that schools start the year at a funding level no lower than the prior year inclusive of most categories of funding, including FSF." A school projected to shrink keeps its prior-year starting budget. This piece is the entire $286 million initial allocation for FY2027.
  3. In the fall, actual enrollment is counted from each school's register at the end of October, and budgets are normally trued up: schools that enrolled more students than projected get more money, and schools that enrolled fewer have Fair Student Funding taken back.
  4. Mid-year protection ("register relief"). In some years the city has switched off that mid-year reduction, so a school that projected 400 students and enrolled 340 keeps the budget it was given for 400. Schools that gained students still get their increase. The comptroller says this piece has run since FY2025, and that in FY2021 through FY2023 the city replaced varying shares of lost enrollment (25 to 100 percent) with federal pandemic aid and city money. The City Council's tally shows no mid-year allocation in FY2024.
  5. Either way, the cost is the money a school keeps beyond what its funding formula would otherwise give it, and it is paid for centrally. Register relief replaces only per-pupil Fair Student Funding; hold harmless compares a school's entire prior-year funding, with a few exceptions such as pre-K.
Hold harmless prevents a reduction; it does not pay for anything new. That is why a school can be described as receiving millions in hold harmless funding while its principal experiences it as the budget not being cut.

What official sources say it costs

DOE's class size plan for 2025-26 states that "New York City has invested a total of $1.2 billion since FY 2021 in 'hold harmless' funding for schools losing enrollment to ensure they can maintain services" (NYC Public Schools, SY2025-2026 Class Size Reduction Plan, July 2025). The City Council Finance Division's tally of DOE's school allocation memos puts the total for FY2021 through FY2026 at $1.64 billion, including $388 million in FY2026 (2025-26): $127 million allocated before the school year and $262 million at mid-year. For FY2027 (2026-27), DOE released $286 million in initial hold harmless allocations in June 2026, according to the city comptroller, bringing the comptroller's count since FY2021 to $1.93 billion; these allocation totals exclude centrally budgeted fringe benefits. When Chancellor Aviles-Ramos announced the 2024-25 mid-year hold harmless in November 2024, DOE said the mid-year adjustment it waived would have totaled $157 million.

Reported figures, not primary-verified

The figures below come from Chalkbeat's June 22, 2026, analysis of Department of Education data, "NYC's $1.9 billion dilemma: How long can schools be 'held harmless' for enrollment losses?" The underlying data is DOE's, but the school counts and school-level figures are Chalkbeat's, and this page has not reproduced them from source files. All refer to the 2026-27 school year.

  • Nearly $290 million for 2026-27, which Chalkbeat says is more than double what the city spent before the 2025-26 school year began (the full 2025-26 total, after the mid-year allocation, was higher, at about $388 million).
  • 723 schools received hold harmless funds for 2026-27; 55 received more than $1 million each.
  • Nearly $1.9 billion cumulatively since 2020, close to the comptroller's $1.93 billion for FY2021 through FY2027.

Two concrete schools:

  • I.S. 339, Bronx. Enrollment fell from 315 students in 2020 to 150 in 2025-26. The school is slated to get nearly $2.5 million in hold harmless funding for 2026-27, roughly a third of its $7.8 million budget. About one dollar in three at this school is money the funding formula says it should no longer be getting.
  • Urban Assembly Institute of Math and Science for Young Women, Downtown Brooklyn. Enrollment fell from nearly 500 in 2020 to 350. It is slated to receive about $374,000 for 2026-27. Chalkbeat notes that its calculation uses roster figures from a few years back.
Why this belongs on a per-pupil page. Per-pupil spending is spending divided by students. Hold harmless holds the numerator steady at schools where the denominator is falling, which pushes per-pupil spending up at exactly those schools, mechanically rather than because anyone decided to spend more on each child. The policy question it raises has arguments on both sides: a school that loses 40 students does not lose 40 students' worth of fixed costs, since it still needs a principal, a payroll secretary, a boiler and a full slate of course offerings. Whether that justifies indefinite protection, and for how long, is a judgment this page does not make. For scale, the FY2026 total of about $388 million is a little over 1 percent of DOE's $34.5 billion in FY2025 operating spending.

5. The class size mandate and its extension

A 2022 state law requires smaller classes in New York City schools. DOE projects that full compliance will cost $949 million to $1.7 billion a year in added teacher costs, and the School Construction Authority projects about $18 billion in construction. In 2026 the Mamdani administration sought more time, and in June the state extended the deadline by two years, to the 2029-30 school year.

What the law requires

Chapter 556 of the Laws of 2022, signed Sept. 8, 2022, caps class sizes in New York City schools and requires the district to publish annual class size reduction plans. The caps are well below the limits in the contract with the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) that governed before:

Grade levelCap under UFT contractCap under Chapter 556
Kindergarten2520
Grades 1-33220
Grades 4-53223
Grades 6-8 (Title I schools)3023
Grades 6-8 (non-Title I)3323
Grades 9-123425
Physical education and performing groups (contract cap: physical education and required music, grades 6-12)5040

The law as signed in 2022 called for full compliance by September 2027; a 2023 amendment (Chapter 86 of the Laws of 2023) set the schedule DOE then followed, phased in by share of classes: 20 percent in 2023-24, 40 percent in 2024-25, 60 percent in 2025-26, 80 percent in 2026-27 and 100 percent in 2027-28. Chapter 155 of the Laws of 2026, signed June 26, 2026, extended the schedule: after the first three years, compliance now rises 10 points a year, to 70 percent in 2026-27, 80 percent in 2027-28, 90 percent in 2028-29 and 100 percent in 2029-30. Exemptions are limited to statutory categories, such as lack of space or a shortage of teachers in a license area, and must be approved by the chancellor and the presidents of the UFT and the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators (CSA).

Where compliance stands

DOE reported that 46 percent of classes were at or below the caps in 2024-25, above the 40 percent requirement, and 64 percent in 2025-26, above the 60 percent requirement (as of Oct. 31, 2025). DOE says these counts reflect non-exempted classes; the City Council counted 10,535 classes with approved exemptions in 2025-26. For 2025-26, more than 800 schools submitted plans, and in April 2025 DOE notified schools of funding for 3,700 teachers and more than 100 assistant principals, expecting to spend over $400 million at roughly 750 schools.

What it is projected to cost

The Independent Budget Office estimated in July 2023 that full compliance would require about 17,700 additional teachers at $1.6 billion to $1.9 billion a year. Its December 2025 update, using 2023-24 data, put the need at 16,300 teachers at $1.5 billion to $1.7 billion a year. DOE's November 2025 financial impact statement projects $949 million to $1.7 billion a year in added teacher costs beyond what it had already distributed (its text says "teacher salary alone"; its cost tables note that they include fringe benefits). Capital costs are larger and less certain: the School Construction Authority estimated $22.3 billion to $26.8 billion in 2024, according to the city comptroller, and about $18 billion in DOE's November 2025 statement.

In the city's FY2027 budget, the Executive Plan in May 2026 removed the $542.9 million in new city class size money the preliminary budget had proposed: $508 million became "cost containment" savings and the rest was replaced with state funds, according to the City Council's Finance Division. Class size funding still rose $122 million from the prior year ($92 million in new state money plus a $30 million city increase added under the prior administration), which the Council's report says "is currently estimated" to pay for about 1,000 more teachers. Separately, the adopted budget added another $122 million a year in state education funding for class size starting in FY2027; with it, the comptroller counts $914 million a year in class size funding added by the Mamdani administration by FY2030.

Reported figures, not primary-verified

From Chalkbeat's April 2, 2026, report, "Mamdani campaigned on fulfilling NYC's class size mandate. So why is he pushing for a delay?": the mayor's preliminary budget included $543 million in additional city funding for class size in the coming fiscal year and $943 million in each of the three years after. State Sen. John Liu, the law's sponsor, was open to stretching the remaining phase-in to four years rather than two, with 70 percent compliance in September and 10 more points each year, if the city produced more detailed plans, and said, "Adjustments in the timeline are not meant to provide fiscal relief." The state Assembly proposed $600 million in state support. The enacted outcome is described above.

How this interacts with everything above. The class size mandate pushes in the opposite direction from enrollment decline. Falling enrollment raises per-pupil spending without raising total spending; the mandate raises total spending by requiring more teachers for the same students. Both are happening at once, which is part of why New York City's per-pupil figure is hard to read as a simple measure of generosity or of waste. Smaller classes also mean fewer students per teacher, one of the documented differences between New York City and the national average listed in Section 8; the mandate widens that difference by design.

6. The whole department: $41.6 billion, and how much goes to headquarters (IBO, FY2025)

The breakdown at the top of the page is per pupil. This section steps back to the Department of Education's whole budget, using IBO's Oct. 6, 2026, update of FY2025 actual spending, in dollars as spent. IBO's $41.6 billion total is DOE's $34.5 billion in operating spending plus three DOE-related costs that other city agencies manage: pensions ($3.4 billion), debt service ($3.4 billion) and other health care costs ($0.2 billion). Unlike the per-pupil figures above, it includes debt service and $3.36 billion in payments to charter schools. DOE's operating budget is divided into units of appropriation (U/As), and IBO publishes actual spending for each. Grouped into six buckets, central administration (U/A 453/454) was 1.3 percent of DOE operating spending in FY2025. In IBO's figures that share stayed between 1.2 and 1.8 percent every year from FY2011 to FY2025.

FY2025 actual spending by U/A, dollars as spent (total $34.7 billion, before netting out $0.12 billion in sales to other city agencies). School-related programs ($19.5B) = U/A 401-410 and 481/482, IBO's grouping. Fringe benefits ($4.2B) = U/A 461. Central special education and private placements ($5.1B) = U/A 421-424 (District 75 and other citywide special education plus centrally managed related services such as occupational and physical therapy), 470 (special education pre-K contracts), 472 (contract schools, Carter cases, foster care) and 474 (non-public schools and the Fashion Institute of Technology). Operations ($5.0B) = U/A 435-444: facilities, pupil transportation, school food, safety, energy and leases. School support organizations ($0.39B) = U/A 415/416: superintendents' offices, borough support and family engagement. Central administration ($0.45B) = U/A 453/454: DOE headquarters offices. Shares in the tooltips are of the $34.67 billion total of all U/As. Inside school-related programs: general education district schools $8.97 billion (U/A 401/402), charter schools $3.36 billion (406), special education district schools $2.57 billion (403/404), categorical (grant-funded) programs $2.13 billion (481/482), pre-K $1.94 billion (407/408) and early childhood $0.54 billion (409/410); IBO's release rounds the total to $20 billion. The special education line covers instruction in district schools, such as integrated co-teaching, special classes and resource room; it does not include District 75 or the other special education lines in Section 7. Source: IBO, Education Spending Since 1990 data file (Oct. 6, 2026), sheet E.
Central administration is a small share of the operating budget. Headquarters administration was about 1.3 percent of operating spending in FY2025; adding school support organizations brings administration to about 2.4 percent. The large categories are school-related programs (56 percent), centrally budgeted fringe benefits (12 percent), centrally run special education and private placements (15 percent) and operations such as transportation, food and facilities (14 percent). Pensions, debt service and other health care costs, another $7.0 billion, sit outside the operating budget. Two cautions: some administrative work is paid from other lines, and starting with the FY2026 budget the city created new U/As 433/434 for DOE's technology division while U/A 453/454 shrank, so budgets from FY2026 on are not directly comparable with these figures.
The bucketing is this page's, not IBO's. IBO publishes spending for each U/A; the six groups below are this page's, except "school-related programs," which is IBO's own grouping. A different reasonable grouping would move dollars between bars. The caption lists exactly which lines went into each bucket. An earlier version of this chart used the City Council Finance Division's report on the FY2019 preliminary budget (March 2018), which put U/A 453/454 at $345 million of a $25.6 billion budget, or 1.35 percent. That was a budget plan; IBO's actual-spending figure for FY2019 is 1.41 percent.
Why fringe benefits are their own bar. Most health insurance, Social Security and welfare-fund costs for DOE employees are budgeted on one central line, U/A 461, rather than charged to schools or offices. The budget does not say how much of it covers school staff versus central staff, so it is shown separately. Pensions are not in DOE's budget at all.
Why there is no "general education per-pupil" figure here. A natural question is what the $8.97 billion general education line works out to per general education student. This page does not publish that number. No published enrollment count matches the spending line, and IBO cautions that "not all categories of spending apply to all students reported in that total enrollment." Dividing the line by any published count would produce a number that looks precise but cannot be checked against a source.

7. Special education: what can and cannot be broken out

Special education spending is spread across several budget lines, and no public document adds it all up. Here is what public sources do and do not show.

What is broken out publicly

ItemAmountYearSource
Special education instruction in district schools: integrated co-teaching, special classes, resource room and school-based related services (U/A 403/404)$2.57BFY2025IBO
Citywide special education, including District 75 schools (U/A 421/422)$1.58BFY2025IBO
Special education instructional support: centrally managed related services and evaluations (U/A 423/424)$1.04BFY2025IBO
Special education pre-K contracts (U/A 470)$0.82BFY2025IBO
Contract schools, Carter cases, foster care and Chapter 683 payments (U/A 472)$1.54BFY2025IBO
Due-process cases: tuition for Carter and Connors cases, direct services, legal fees and transportation. Carter cases were budgeted in U/A 472 until FY2027, so this is largely included above, not in addition.$1.14BFY2025City Council Finance Division, from DOE
Average cost of a due-process settlement (due process complaints and ten-day notices combined); $101,424 in FY2025$109,859FY2026Mayor's Management Report, 2026

The first five lines total $7.5 billion in FY2025, before fringe benefits, pensions and special education busing, which are budgeted elsewhere. U/A 472 also pays some costs that are not special education, such as schooling for foster children placed outside the city. The FY2025 due-process figure is lower than in earlier years partly because DOE and the city budget office changed how these costs are booked: costs are now charged to the year a case is decided or settled rather than charged back to the year it began. In the FY2027 budget, due-process cases moved to their own line, U/A 476.

What is not broken out publicly

For more on due-process spending, filings and settlements, see the companion tracker: New York City special education due process spending tracker.

8. Why is New York City so much higher?

In FY2024, New York City spent $35,796 per pupil against a U.S. national average of $17,619 (Census current spending, dollars as spent), a gap of $18,177. A common explanation is that the city serves more students with disabilities. The data confirms that its share is high. What the data does not support is a confident claim about how much of the gap that explains.

Part A: New York City does have a high share of students with disabilities

Sources: The first three bars are computed from a single New York State Education Department file, the 2024-25 BEDS Day school-level "Students with Disabilities" table, divided by pre-K-12 enrollment from the matching "All Students" table, for schools in the five New York City counties; the state figure covers all public schools, including charters. Because all three come from the same file, year and definition, they are directly comparable to each other. NYSED's final 2025-26 file gives 25.5 percent for district schools and 20.8 percent for charter schools. District schools enroll about 30,000 pre-K pupils and charters almost none; counting kindergarten through 12th grade only, the 2024-25 district share is about 24.8 percent. The national bar is not strictly comparable: it is the NCES figure for students ages 3-21 served under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) as a share of public school enrollment, 2022-23 (Digest of Education Statistics, Table 204.70), which uses a different collection, year and age range. It is shown as a rough reference point.
A difference in the same data. New York City charter schools enroll a smaller share of students with disabilities (20.8 percent) than New York City district schools (24.4 percent). Both figures come from the same NYSED file. This page does not attempt to explain the difference; the data shows the gap but not its cause.

Part B: Why this page does not put a number on each cause

An earlier version of this page carried a bar chart that split New York City's roughly $18,000 per-pupil gap over the national average into dollar amounts for special education mix, staffing levels and teacher pay. That chart has been removed. Producing it required assigning a fully loaded cost per teacher and an excess cost per special education student, and no official source publishes either figure for New York City. The dollar splits were therefore assumptions presented as findings.

What follows instead is what official sources do document, without an attempt to apportion the gap among causes. No government source publishes a decomposition of why New York City's per-pupil spending exceeds the national average, and this page does not manufacture one.

What official sources do document

Documented factorFigureSource
Where the gap sits, by type of spending, FY2024Salaries and wages $6,533; employee benefits $4,700; other current spending $6,944 per pupil. By function, instruction accounts for $15,746 of the gap.Census Bureau, 2024 Annual Survey of School System Finances, Tables 18 and 8
Students per full-time-equivalent teacher, fall 202212.3 in New York City DOE schools; 11.7 in New York State; 15.4 nationallyCommon Core of Data, via the Urban Institute Education Data Portal (New York City); NCES Digest Table 208.40 (state and nation)
Students per DOE pedagogical position (IBO's measure; its student count includes charter students, and DOE's pedagogical positions include paraprofessionals, per the City Council)8.9 in FY2025, down from 12.1 in FY1990IBO, Education Spending Since 1990 (Oct. 2026)
Share of students with disabilities, New York City district schools24.4 percent (2024-25)NYSED BEDS Day enrollment files
Average age of a New York City school building75 years (2023-24)IBO, "Barriers to Learning," March 2025
Per-pupil rank among the 100 largest districtsFirst every year FY2016-FY2024 except FY2021 (second, behind Boston)Census Bureau, Table 18
Share of total DOE spending from city, state and federal funds57 / 36 / 7 percent (FY2025); 52 / 35 / 12 percent (FY2024)IBO, Education Spending Since 1990 (Oct. 2026), full agency cost

Census notes that New York City reports guidance counselors under instruction, which slightly overstates its instruction spending. Census figures are not adjusted for regional differences in wages or prices.

What the sources show: New York City staffs its schools more intensively than the national norm, serves a substantially higher share of students with disabilities than the state or the country and operates an old building stock in a high-cost region. Each of those raises cost. How much each contributes to the gap is not established by any published government analysis; the split is unknown.

9. How New York City compares to other large districts

Among the 100 largest U.S. school systems, New York City had the highest current spending per pupil in FY2024, the most recent year the Census Bureau has published. It ranked first in every year from FY2016 through FY2024 except FY2021, when Boston, then among the 100 largest, ranked first ($31,397 to New York City's $29,931).

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2024 Annual Survey of School System Finances, Table 18 ("Per Pupil Amounts for Current Spending of the 100 Largest Public Elementary-Secondary School Systems"), released May 7, 2026. Every district figure is FY2024, read from the same table, so all bars are directly comparable. The national average of $17,619 is from Table 8. Boston is not shown because, with 45,742 students, it is not among the 100 largest systems; calculated from the Census district file the way Census calculates Table 18, it spent $39,929 per pupil in FY2024, more than New York City. "Current spending" excludes capital outlay and debt service. Dollars as spent, not adjusted for regional cost differences. Caveat: district-level per-pupil spending is heavily shaped by state funding systems, regional labor costs and cost of living; these bars are not a measure of efficiency or of how much reaches classrooms.

Sources and methodology

Every figure outside the two labeled boxes traces to a primary government document. A standalone methodology note explains each calculation and lists what changed: methodology.md.

  1. U.S. Census Bureau, Annual Survey of School System Finances, summary tables and district files for fiscal years 2016 through 2024. Table 18 supplies every per-pupil and enrollment figure; the district file supplies the spending numerator and the Boston comparison. Data tables
  2. U.S. Census Bureau, "Public School Spending Per Pupil Reaches Historic High in 2024," press release CB26-TPS.29, May 7, 2026. Link
  3. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U), New York-Newark-Jersey City, all items, not seasonally adjusted (series CUURS12ASA0). Deflator for every constant-dollar figure, averaged over July-June. Link
  4. New York State Education Department, BEDS Day public school enrollment files (all students; students with disabilities), school years 2012-13 through 2025-26 (2025-26 final release, data as of Aug. 22, 2026). Current files, archive
  5. New York City Independent Budget Office, Education Spending Since 1990 (chart book and data file), updated Oct. 6, 2026. Chart book, data file
  6. New York City Independent Budget Office, "City Funding Returns to Pre-Pandemic Levels as Federal Pandemic Funds Expire," Oct. 6, 2026. Link
  7. New York City Independent Budget Office, "Annual Department of Education Spending: 2024 Shifts," press release, June 17, 2025 (FY2024 edition, superseded). PDF
  8. New York City Independent Budget Office, "Barriers to Learning: Age, Accessibility, Space Usage, and Air Conditioning in NYC School Buildings," March 2025. PDF
  9. New York City Independent Budget Office, "How Would the New Limits to Class Sizes Affect New York City Schools?" July 2023, and "A Slow Start: Limited Progress in First Years Towards Class Size Compliance," December 2025 (class size teacher and cost estimates). 2023 PDF, 2025 PDF
  10. New York City Council Finance Division, Report on the Fiscal 2019 Preliminary Budget and the Fiscal 2018 Preliminary Mayor's Management Report for the Department of Education, March 2018 (FY2019 comparison; descriptions of each U/A). PDF
  11. New York City Council Finance Division, Report on the Fiscal 2027 Preliminary Plan for the Department of Education, March 2026 (due-process spending and how it is booked). PDF
  12. New York City Council Finance Division, Report on the Fiscal 2027 Executive Plan for the Department of Education, June 2026 (hold harmless allocations by year, class size budget changes). PDF
  13. New York City Comptroller, Comments on New York City's Fiscal Year 2027 Adopted Budget, Aug. 12, 2026 (hold harmless allocations, class size funding). Link
  14. NYC Department of Education, School Based Expenditure Reports, FY2018 System Wide Report (last edition). Link
  15. NYC Department of Education, Funding Our Schools (Fair Student Funding documentation). Link
  16. NYC Department of Education, FY2027 school funding presentation to community education councils (District 75 funding). PDF
  17. NYC Department of Education, Demographic Snapshot, 2021-22 to 2025-26 (version of Aug. 20, 2026). Link
  18. New York State Education Department, 2024-25 Financial Transparency Reports (school-level actual spending per pupil by function and object) for P.S. 307, P.S. 321 and P.S. 369; business rules; report card database 2024-25, table "Expenditures per Pupil" (SRC2025.zip).
  19. NYC Department of Education, Galaxy Budget Summaries, FY2026 tables of organization as of June 25, 2026 (lookup page), and budget summary glossary.
  20. NYC Office of Payroll Administration, Citywide Payroll Data (Fiscal Year), NYC Open Data (fields checked Oct. 26, 2026).
  21. NYC Mayor's Office of Operations, Mayor's Management Report 2026, Department of Education chapter (average settlement cost). PDF
  22. NYC Public Schools, due-process cases report to the City Council, December 2025. Spreadsheet
  23. City Council Committee on Education hearing, Jan. 30, 2025, unofficial transcript. Link
  24. NYC Public Schools, SY2025-2026 (FY2026) Class Size Reduction Plan. Source of the class size caps table, the original phase-in benchmarks, the 46 percent SY2024-25 compliance figure, the 3,700-teacher allocation and the $1.2 billion hold harmless total since FY2021. PDF
  25. Chapter 556 of the Laws of 2022 (New York State class size law), and Chapter 155 of the Laws of 2026 (Assembly bill A11539, Senate bill S10615), which extended its deadline to 2030. A10498 (Chapter 556), A11539 (Chapter 155)
  26. NYC Public Schools, Financial Impact Statement on the class size law, Nov. 15, 2025, and class size annual report, Nov. 15, 2025. Financial impact statement, annual report
  27. New York City Comptroller, letter certifying the class size plan's capital cost estimate, June 20, 2024 (School Construction Authority estimate of $22.3 billion to $26.8 billion). PDF
  28. NYC Public Schools, "Chancellor Aviles-Ramos Announces Mid-Year Hold Harmless," Nov. 27, 2024. Link
  29. National Center for Education Statistics, Digest of Education Statistics 2023, Table 204.70 (students served under IDEA) and Table 208.40 (pupil/teacher ratios); Common Core of Data via the Urban Institute Education Data Portal. Table 204.70, Table 208.40, Urban Institute

Non-government sources, used only where marked. Two sections carry figures this page could not trace to a primary government document. They are boxed and labeled on the page rather than mixed in with the rest.

  1. Chalkbeat New York, "NYC's $1.9 billion dilemma: How long can schools be 'held harmless' for enrollment losses?" June 22, 2026, an analysis of DOE data; source of the 2026-27 total, the 723-school count and the two school-level examples. Link
  2. Chalkbeat New York, "Mamdani campaigned on fulfilling NYC's class size mandate. So why is he pushing for a delay?" April 2, 2026; source of the $543 million and $943 million preliminary-budget figures and the negotiating positions. Link