Government spending and efficiency.

• Author: Lowery, Dan

Overall, the difference in spending between high- and low-cost cities and towns can be quite large. Caution must be used in comparing municipal budgets, however, because urban municipalities are responsible for some kinds of services not incurred by towns and cities located in rural and suburban settings. The cost of police and fire protection, for instance, differs greatly.

Municipal Budgets Per Capita

Excluding police and firefighter pensions, towns and cities in Lake County spent, on average, $359 per resident in 2003. (Data for Lake Station were not available at the time the analysis was conducted.) Two cities exceeded this average by wide margins (see Figure 1). The City of Whiting spent $1,071 per person in 2003 and the City of East Chicago spent $634 on a per capita basis. If we exclude these two outliers, the average for all towns and cities falls to $317 per person. The City of Whiting exceeded this revised average by 338 percent.

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Public Education

Schools account for as much as 50 percent of the property tax bill in some taxing districts. Judging whether or not these dollars are well spent can be challenging. Four sets of data are revealing, however: cost per student, ISTEP scores, student/teacher ratio, and administrative overhead expenditures.

On average, school districts statewide spent $8,550 per child over the course of the 2003-2004 school year. Six of the sixteen school districts in Lake County exceeded this average by more than 15 percent (see Figure 2): East Chicago Schools by 32.1 percent ($11,300), Lake Ridge Schools by 28 percent ($11,000), Whiting Schools by 20.5 percent ($10,300), Gary Schools by 19.3 percent ($10,200), Hammond Schools by 19.3 percent ($10,200), and Griffith Schools by 17.1 percent ($10,000).

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During the 2003-2004 school year, school districts statewide reported an average student/teacher ratio of 18.9 to 1. Led by the Crown Point Schools at 23.4 students per teacher, nine school districts in Lake County exceeded this average. Four had substantially fewer students for each teacher, however, including Gary at 17.3 to 1, East Chicago at 17.2 to 1, Lake Station at 17.1 to 1, and Whiting at 16.3 to 1. Furthermore, we found that student/teacher ratios differ little from district to district in the elementary schools. A much higher level of variability was found in the middle and high schools.

Overall costs alone cannot be used to assess educational efficiency. A broad range of performance measures, including ISTEP scores, should be considered, along with the demographics of...