Arizona School District Spending Analysis and data file—Fiscal year 2025

Compared to FY 2024, districts spent nearly $53 million less on instruction and the State-wide instructional spending percentage (ISP) fell for the third consecutive year to its lowest percentage since we began monitoring in FY 2001. The ISP declined by 0.5 percentage points to 52.1%, despite total school district spending increasing by $300 million to $13.4 billion. The increased spending was entirely directed to nonoperational areas, including capital improvements and new school construction primarily at 10 districts. 

Although a few districts in the State are growing, most continued to experience declining year-over-year student enrollment and associated funding reductions. As reported in January 2026 School district financial risk analysis, one-third of districts have experienced reductions in enrollment that potentially put them at added financial risk. As overall student enrollment has declined, the proportion of students requiring special education services has increased. If this trend continues, the proportion of classroom spending specifically related to special education services could continue to rise. 

For FY 2025, the State’s average teacher salary increased by about 1% to $65,613. Just over half of all districts reported increased average teacher salaries, but a growing number of districts reported that their average teacher salaries declined in FY 2025. Many districts with declining average teacher salaries reduced their reliance on one-time payments, including COVID-19 federal relief monies, for teacher pay and did not make up all the difference from other funding sources. We continued to see wide operational spending variations among similar districts, indicating possible opportunities for improved efficiency that may help free up dollars for other district priorities. 

Once again, we are providing our State-wide analysis results and individual district results in an interactive, user-friendly, web-based format. Similar to prior years, this format will allow you to easily view detailed results for a single district or the summarized State results in a manner that provides information about why this data is important and how it can be used. The website also defines and explains the measures we present, our objectives and scope, and data sources. Links to the website can be found under “Report” below. Additionally, we continue to issue a supplemental Microsoft Excel data file, which contains the numbers and other information presented in the graphics on the individual district and State results pages and can be found under “Additional Documents” below.