Reading a District Budget and Financial Reports

A school district budget looks hard because it is long and coded. It is easier than it looks. Idaho requires every district to budget, account and report in the format the state superintendent prescribes, and the State Department of Education publishes that format as the IFARMS manual. Once you know the format, a 60-page budget turns into a few tables you can check with a calculator: where the money comes from, what it pays for, how much is left, and how this year compares with the last two. This lesson teaches those tables, walks through a real Idaho statement and an invented one, and ends with the questions that get specific answers at a budget hearing. The calendar and hearing law are in lesson 03; how the state formula sends money to districts is in lesson 04.

One district, many funds

A district does not have one checking account in the accounting sense. It has funds, each a self-balancing set of books for money with its own purpose or legal limits. The IFARMS manual says districts set up funds "because of legal restrictions, such as the Bond Interest and Redemption Fund, or by administrative decision, such as a Driver's Education Fund." The codes are the same in every Idaho district.

Code	Fund	What it holds, per IFARMS	Typical money in
100	General M and O Fund	The chief operating fund; everything not required to be in another fund	State foundation program money, supplemental levy, interest
200 to 289	Special Revenue Funds	Revenue legally restricted to specific purposes: 220 Forest Reserve, 230 to 239 local projects, 240 to 249 state projects, 250 to 289 federal projects (251 Title I-A, 257 IDEA Part B, 271 Title II-A and so on)	Grants with strings
290	Child Nutrition Fund	All school food service transactions	Federal meal reimbursements, meal sales, transfers from the general fund
300, 310	Debt Service Funds; Bond Interest and Redemption	Resources for paying long-term debt principal and interest; 310 holds bond levy revenue under 33-802	Bond levy, state facilities money applied to bonds
400, 410, 420 to 427	Capital Project Funds; Capital Construction; School Plant Facilities Reserve	Money to buy or build major facilities; 410 usually holds bond sale proceeds; 420 to 427 hold plant facilities levy money under 33-804	Bond proceeds, plant facilities levy, state facilities money
500	Enterprise Funds	Activities that charge outside users a fee	Fees
600	Internal Service Funds	Services one part of the district sells to another at cost	Charges to other funds
700	Fiduciary Funds	Money held for others that cannot support district programs	Trusts

The fund split matters most during levy and bond season. Bond proceeds sit in a capital projects fund and can only build what the bond was for. Bond levy money sits in debt service and can only pay the bonds. A supplemental levy lands in the general fund. So a district can have $20 million in a construction account and still lay off teachers. The law keeps each pot to its purpose.

Where the money comes from

The SDE's annual financial summaries use five revenue lines: Taxes, Other Local, State Sources, Federal Sources and Other Sources. We added up all 191 district and charter school statements in SDE's 2024-2025 Financial Summaries of Idaho Schools workbook. Totals are rounded to the nearest $0.1 million.

Revenue line, fiscal 2025	General fund (100)	Share of general fund	All funds	Share of all funds
Taxes	$358.8 million	11.4%	$461.6 million	8.9%
Other local	$110.9 million	3.5%	$337.7 million	6.5%
State sources	$2,648.5 million	83.8%	$3,896.7 million	74.8%
Federal sources	$12.0 million	0.4%	$375.3 million	7.2%
Other sources	$28.5 million	0.9%	$135.8 million	2.6%
Total	$3,158.7 million	100%	$5,207.1 million	100%

The arithmetic for the headline share: $2,648.5 million / $3,158.7 million = 0.838, or 83.8 percent of general fund revenue from the state. Federal money barely touches the general fund because federal grants go to special revenue and child nutrition funds, where they must be tracked separately.

One line in the all-funds column needs explaining. State sources include $1,106.2 million that went into capital projects funds in fiscal 2025, and statewide capital projects fund balances rose from $352.9 million on July 1, 2024 to $1,299.1 million on June 30, 2025. Most of that state building money had not been spent by year end. If you compare your district's total revenue across years, pull capital projects out first, or a one-time building payment will look like a jump in operating money. The state facilities programs behind these payments are in lesson 06.

Local property tax for schools is small statewide but large in a few districts. SDE's Tax Levies for School Purposes report for 2024-2025 shows 77 districts with supplemental levies totaling $180,027,099, and five districts with budget stabilization or charter maintenance and operation levies totaling $150,430,732, of which Boise's charter levy accounts for $115,000,000. The same report shows state facilities money reduced what districts levied for bonds by $70,209,469 and for supplemental levies by $54,241,060.

Where the money goes: functions and objects

Every expenditure gets two codes. The function says what activity it served. The object says what was bought. IFARMS gives the example 515100: function 515, secondary school program, plus object 100, salaries.

Function code	Area	Examples	Statewide fiscal 2025, all funds
500	Instruction	512 elementary, 515 secondary, 521 special education, 524 gifted and talented, 531 interscholastic	$2,113.6 million
600	Support services	611 guidance and health, 621 instructional improvement, 631 board, 632 district administration, 641 school administration, 661 custodial, 664 maintenance, 681 busing	$1,406.1 million
700	Non-instructional services	710 food service, 720 community services	$209.6 million
800	Facility acquisition	810 and 811 capital assets	Reported as capital asset lines
900	Other services	911 debt principal, 912 debt interest	$197.1 million principal, $75.7 million interest

Object codes: 100 salaries, 200 employee benefits, 300 purchased services, 400 supplies and materials, 500 capital objects, 600 debt retirement, 700 insurance and judgments, 800 transfers and other items. SDE's financial summaries report by function, not object. To see salaries and benefits for a district, use its budget document, which 33-801 requires to show "total amounts budgeted for salary and wage expenditures" separately in each major classification.

The state formula explains why salaries dominate. In SDE's FY2027 appropriation presentation, total public school revenues are $3,124,238,900. Four lines pay people: career ladder salaries ($1,084,817,500), career ladder benefits ($229,221,900), salary-based apportionment for administrators and classified staff ($349,467,900) and their benefits ($70,082,000). Together: $1,733,589,300. Divided by $3,124,238,900 = 0.555. So 55.5 percent of the state public schools budget is distributed through salary and benefit formulas before a district spends a dollar of discretionary money on staff.

A real statement: Boise School District, fiscal 2025

Each district's page in SDE's financial summaries is a combined statement of revenues, expenditures and changes in fund balance for July 1 to June 30. Here is the general fund column for Boise Independent School District, Idaho's second-largest by market value, from the 2024-2025 workbook.

Boise general fund (100), July 1, 2024 to June 30, 2025	Amount
Taxes	$125,642,311
Other local	$7,091,736
State sources	$174,403,257
Federal sources	$39,903
Total revenue	$307,177,207
Transfers in	$592,121
Total instruction	$188,131,122
Total support services	$120,106,752
Total expenditures	$311,329,827
Transfers out	$12,357,000
Revenue minus expenditures and transfers	($15,917,499)
Fund balance July 1, 2024	$63,403,724
Fund balance June 30, 2025	$47,486,225

Do the division and the picture sharpens.

• Local tax share. $125.6 million / $307.2 million = 40.9 percent of Boise's general fund revenue came from taxes, nearly four times the statewide 11.4 percent. The levy report explains why: Boise carries a $115 million maintenance and operation levy under its charter (SDE lists it in the budget stabilization column) plus a $10.7 million supplemental levy.
• Instruction share. $188.1 million / $311.3 million = 60.4 percent of general fund spending was instruction.
• A planned or unplanned drawdown. The general fund spent $15.9 million more than it took in, and its balance fell by the same amount.
• A transfer, not a loss. The $12,357,000 transferred out of the general fund matches $12,357,000 transferred into Boise's capital projects fund on the same statement. Money moved from operations to buildings.
• Cushion in months. $47.5 million / ($323.7 million / 12) = $47.5 million / $27.0 million = 1.76 months of general fund spending and transfers at year end.

None of that says whether Boise's choices were right. It tells you what to ask: was the drawdown in the adopted budget, what was the transfer for, and what balance does board policy target?

Worked walkthrough: Sagebrush Joint School District

The invented Sagebrush Joint School District has 4,200 students. Here is its adopted general fund budget for the coming year, laid out the way the 33-801 summary statement must show it, with object codes.

Sagebrush Joint, general fund	Budget	Share
State sources	$40,500,000	89.0% of revenue
Supplemental levy (taxes)	$4,000,000	8.8%
Other local (interest, rentals, fees)	$900,000	2.0%
Federal	$100,000	0.2%
Total revenue	$45,500,000	100%
100 Salaries	$27,000,000	59.0% of spending
200 Benefits	$9,600,000	21.0%
300 Purchased services	$4,700,000	10.3%
400 Supplies and materials	$3,300,000	7.2%
500 Capital objects	$600,000	1.3%
700 Insurance and judgments	$400,000	0.9%
800 Transfer to child nutrition	$200,000	0.4%
Total spending and transfers	$45,800,000	100%
Revenue minus spending	($300,000)
Beginning fund balance	$9,000,000
Ending fund balance	$8,700,000

Now look at what changes the picture. Say the board had planned to cover the levy's $4 million with reserves if it failed. Ending balance would drop to $8,700,000 minus $4,000,000 = $4,700,000, or $4,700,000 / $3,816,667 = 1.23 months. Possible once. Not twice.

Fund balance and reserves

Fund balance is the most argued-over number in school finance. Supporters of a levy point to a thin balance as proof the district needs money. Opponents point to a thick balance as proof it does not. Both need to know what the number contains.

Audited statements split governmental fund balance into five categories set by GASB Statement No. 54, from most to least constrained: nonspendable, restricted, committed, assigned and unassigned, as the Government Finance Officers Association's fund balance guidelines describe. Nonspendable is inventory and prepaid items. Restricted is money outsiders or law limit, such as grant funds. Committed is money the board has formally set aside by its own action. Assigned is money intended for a purpose. Unassigned is what is truly free. The IFARMS manual still uses the older reserved, designated and undesignated terms, so a district's budget and its audit may label the same dollars differently.

The GFOA recommends that general-purpose governments keep unrestricted general fund balance of "no less than two months of regular general fund operating revenues or regular general fund operating expenditures," and says the right level depends on each government's risks. We did not find an Idaho statute that sets a minimum or maximum general fund balance for school districts. One related rule is in 33-701(1): warrants and disbursements from any fund may not exceed 95 percent of that fund's estimated revenue for the year until the revenue is actually paid in.

For a statewide sense of scale, we divided each statement's ending general fund balance by its general fund spending and transfers in SDE's fiscal 2025 summaries. The median across 191 districts and charters was about 0.30, or about 3.6 months. Small districts and charters often hold more in months because one broken boiler or one special education placement is a bigger share of their budget. Treat the median as context, not a target.

Where to find every document

Document	Who publishes it	When	Law
Proposed budget and hearing notice with summary statement (current and coming year, two prior years' actuals)	District; notice posted and published	Hearing at least 28 days before the regular July meeting in most districts (14 days if 33-804(4) conditions are met); notice posted at least 10 days and published once	33-801, 33-402
Adopted budget	District website	Within 30 days of board approval	33-357(3)(b)
Budget amendments	District; filed with the state superintendent	During the year, after notice and a 60 percent board vote	33-701(9)
Annual statement of financial condition	District, published in a newspaper	Within 120 days after June 30	33-701(5)
Vendor list with amounts paid; count of teachers at each salary level	District administrative office, on request	Any time	33-701(5)
Independent audit	District; copy to SDE	To SDE after board acceptance, no later than November 10	33-701(6)
Master labor agreements and existing supporting contracts	District website	Current versions	33-357(3)(b)
Expenditure detail (payee, amount, date)	State Controller, Transparent Idaho, from data districts submit	On the controller's update schedule	33-357(2), 67-1075
Financial Summaries of Idaho Schools (every district and charter)	SDE Public School Finance	Annually; 2024-2025 posted August 2026	33-701(7) reports
Tax Levies for School Purposes; Supplemental Levies (Historical)	SDE Public School Finance	Annually	Data from county certifications
Public schools appropriation and presentation	SDE; Legislative Services Office budget documents	After each session	Appropriation bills
Per-pupil and revenue comparisons	Idaho Ed Trends; Idaho Report Card	Varies	None specific

The SDE Public School Finance page holds the IFARMS manual and current chart of accounts, the financial summaries back to 2012-2013, levy reports, salary reports, the budget forms districts use (including the four-year summary that matches the 33-801 comparison requirement) and a list of each district's auditor. Section 33-357 requires each district to link to the State Controller's expenditure site from its main web page; if yours does not, that is worth a polite email.

Questions to ask at the budget hearing

The 33-801 hearing is the one meeting a year where the whole budget is on the table, and since July 1, 2024 school boards must give residents a chance to comment at regular meetings under 33-510, not limited to agenda items since a 2025 change (see School Boards in the testifying course). Specific questions get specific answers. Vague ones get a speech.

Send the questions in writing a few days before the hearing so staff can bring numbers, and ask that the answers go into the record the clerk keeps under 33-801. If the answers do not come, a public records request for the underlying documents is the next step.