Education Spending

What Portland spends on schools, per student and against its peers, on the state’s uniform figures.

AUDITED FY 2013-14 → FY 2022-23
PULLED 2026-08-10

Enrollment 1,232 Average daily membership, FY 2022-23. CT OPM Municipal Fiscal Indicators (ej6f-y2wf).

Education spending $26.3M Audited actual, FY 2022-23. A town in a regional district reports only the grades it runs. CT OPM Municipal Fiscal Indicators (ej6f-y2wf).

Education spending per pupil $21,338RANK 57 / 169 6% below the statewide median of $22,590 Audited actual ÷ average daily membership, FY 2022-23. CT OPM Municipal Fiscal Indicators (ej6f-y2wf). OPM education expenditures divided by average daily membership. This is not the state Department of Education's Net Current Expenditures Per Pupil, which is calculated on a narrower basis and will differ.

Before you read these charts.

Per-pupil spending — There is more than one per-pupil number, and they are not interchangeable. What this site derives from OPM spending and average daily membership is not the state Department of Education's Net Current Expenditures Per Pupil.
Audited actuals — Audited actuals are what a town actually spent and received across all its governmental funds, as reported after the year closed. They are not the budget the town adopted.
Peer groups — A peer group is a tool for a specific question, not a verdict. A group that is right for comparing school spending can be wrong for comparing snow plowing. Where two defensible groups disagree, this site shows both.
Reported school staffing — Staffing figures are positions each district reports to the state under fixed assignment categories. They count reported roles, not workload, and a category boundary can move a person between lines without anyone changing jobs.
Medians, and why the town is left out of its own — A group is summarized by its median — the middle town, not the average. The subject town is excluded from its own group median, because a town cannot be part of the benchmark it is measured against.
Census survey estimates — American Community Survey figures are rolling five-year averages with a margin of error, not counts of a single year. Consecutive releases overlap and should not be read as year-over-year change.

9 terms bear on this page; the 6 most used are above. Full definitions, what each measure does not support, and the source behind it: How these numbers work.

Read this before the first chart: the per-pupil figure on this page is derived, and it is not the state’s published per-pupil figure. The six spending charts that follow are built from two statewide sources — the CT Office of Policy and Management’s Municipal Fiscal Indicators and OPM’s estimates of statutory aid — plus US Census income estimates on one chart. Four further charts sit below those six: they count students and reported positions rather than dollars, they come from the Connecticut State Department of Education’s EdSight reporting rather than from either OPM dataset, and they carry their own note where they begin. What the two OPM sources do and do not support:

Per-pupil spending here is a division this site performs, not a figure the state publishes. It is a town’s reported education_expenditures divided by its reported school_enrollment_average, both from the same OPM dataset. It is not the state’s Net Current Expenditures Per Pupil, and no figure on this page is derived from that measure — why the two differ, and what a regional district does to both.
Coverage. The six spending charts cover every fiscal year the state publishes town by town; the exact span appears here once the data loads. The four charts below them come from a different source on a school-year basis and cover a span of their own, named in their own note.
The two state datasets on this page cover different years. The spending and enrollment figures end in the most recent fiscal year OPM has released town by town; the Education Cost Sharing figures are forward-looking estimates covering a separate, later set of fiscal years. Each chart names the years its own numbers come from rather than assuming they line up.

01 What does the town spend on each student?

Derived Spending Per Pupil Over Time

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Source: CT OPM Municipal Fiscal Indicators, ej6f-y2wf (education_expenditures ÷ school_enrollment_average). The denominator is average membership — the average number of students on the rolls across the year — not the single-day October headcount the state Department of Education reports. Each peer town’s own per-pupil figure is computed first; the two dashed lines are the median taken across those per-town figures, year by year, and exclude the subject town. Derived per-pupil, not CSDE Net Current Expenditures Per Pupil. Towns belonging to a regional school district for some or all grades report spending for the grades they run themselves, so their per-pupil figures are not on the same basis as a town running its own district across every grade.

Notes

Education expenditures divided by average enrollment, each year, against the median of the surrounding towns and the median of the District Reference Group peers. This is a division of two OPM fields — it is not the state Department of Education’s published Net Current Expenditures Per Pupil, which is compiled on a different basis and is not shown on this page. The line moves when spending changes, when enrollment changes, or both. Nominal dollars, not adjusted for inflation.

Which per-pupil figure this is

OPM education expenditures divided by average daily membership: audited, across all funds, and gross of the state and federal grants that pass through a town’s books. It is not the state Department of Education’s Net Current Expenditures Per Pupil, which is calculated on a narrower basis and will differ — a number from one measure will not match a number from the other. See per-pupil spending.

How a regional district changes the basis

Where a town is part of a regional school district for some or all grades, its reported education spending covers the grades it runs itself, so its figure is not on the same basis as a town running its own district across every grade.

02 How much has that changed?

Change in Spending Per Pupil, First to Last Reported Year

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Source: CT OPM Municipal Fiscal Indicators, ej6f-y2wf (education_expenditures ÷ school_enrollment_average), each town indexed off its own first and last reported values rather than off fixed endpoints. Derived per-pupil, not CSDE Net Current Expenditures Per Pupil. Regional-district towns report the grades they run themselves, so their per-pupil basis differs from that of a town running its own district across every grade. A change in this measure can come from the spending side, the enrollment side, or both; the chart does not separate them.

Notes

Percent change in derived per-pupil spending between each town’s own first and last reported year. The source drops whole town-years, so a town’s span can be shorter than the axis of the chart above; each bar names the years it was measured over when hovered. Nominal dollars, not adjusted for inflation.

What these figures are, and are not

These are nominal dollars, not adjusted for inflation. A change here can come from the spending side, from falling or rising enrollment, or from both at once, and the chart does not separate them. Where a town is part of a regional school district for some or all grades, its reported education spending covers the grades it runs itself, so its figure is not on the same basis as a town running its own district across every grade.

03 How does that compare with similar towns?

Spending Per Pupil, Latest Reported Year

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Source: CT OPM Municipal Fiscal Indicators, ej6f-y2wf (education_expenditures ÷ school_enrollment_average), most recent reported fiscal year. The denominator is average membership — the average number of students on the rolls across the year — not the single-day October headcount the state Department of Education reports. Towns the source does not report both fields for in that year are omitted rather than charted at zero. Derived per-pupil, not CSDE Net Current Expenditures Per Pupil. Towns in a regional school district for some or all grades report only the grades they run, so their bars are not on the same basis as a town running its own district across every grade; district size, grade span, transportation distance and special-education needs also differ from town to town.

04 How does spending per pupil line up with town income?

Income and Spending Per Pupil, Connecticut Towns Reporting Both

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Source: vertical axis — CT OPM Municipal Fiscal Indicators, ej6f-y2wf (education_expenditures ÷ school_enrollment_average), most recent reported fiscal year. Horizontal axis — US Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-year estimates, table B19013 (median_household_income), most recent release carried in /data/ct_town_income.json. The two axes come from different sources on different year bases: the spending figure is a single audited fiscal year, while an ACS 5-year estimate pools five calendar years and is expressed in dollars of its release year, so the two are not aligned in time and the chart does not claim they are. The dashed line is a least-squares fit describing the pattern across the towns plotted; it is a description of those points, not a prediction for any town and not evidence that either measure causes the other. ACS figures carry margins of error that are not shown here. Derived per-pupil, not CSDE Net Current Expenditures Per Pupil; regional-district towns report only the grades they run.

Notes

One point per town that reports both figures: median household income on the horizontal axis, derived per-pupil spending on the vertical axis. The subject town is marked, the two peer groups are colored, and every other town is shown in grey for context. The dashed line is a least-squares fit through the points.

What a scatter can and cannot show

Two figures moving together is not one causing the other. The dashed line is a least-squares fit describing the pattern across the towns plotted; it is a description of those points, not a prediction for any town. Towns differ in what their schools have to do as well as in what they can afford, and neither axis measures that.

Why the two axes are not on the same basis

They come from different sources on different year bases — a single audited fiscal year on one axis, a five-year pooled Census estimate expressed in dollars of its release year on the other — and the Census figures carry margins of error that are not shown. The vertical axis is the derived measure described at the top of this page, not the state Department of Education’s Net Current Expenditures Per Pupil, and regional-district towns report only the grades they run.

06 How much education aid does the state send?

Education Cost Sharing Per Pupil, Latest Estimated Year

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Source: numerator — CT OPM, Estimates of Statutory Aid to Municipalities, sdcm-adr4 (education_cost_sharing). These are OPM estimates of statutory aid, not audited receipts; a town’s books can differ and the estimate is revised. The dataset carries only a few fiscal years and no education-aid history beyond them — the insight box below names them — so it supports a current-year comparison rather than a trend. Education Cost Sharing is one component of intergovernmental revenue, not the whole of it. Denominator — CT OPM Municipal Fiscal Indicators, ej6f-y2wf (school_enrollment_average). The two datasets do not cover the same fiscal years; the insight box names the aid year and the enrollment year separately rather than implying they match. Regional-district towns and towns running their own districts count students differently for this purpose, and the grant is set by a statutory formula that is not a per-pupil rate.

Notes

The state’s Education Cost Sharing grant divided by average enrollment, for the subject town and both peer groups. Education Cost Sharing is a state education grant distributed to municipalities under Conn. Gen. Stat. § 10-262h, and one component of a town’s intergovernmental revenue rather than the whole of it. The dataset behind this chart carries only a few fiscal years — the insight box below names them — which supports a comparison of the current estimate across towns and does not support a trend; no trend is shown or implied here.

How the state decides this

Education Cost Sharing is distributed by a formula the General Assembly writes, on town wealth and student need (CGS §10-262f, §10-262h). A town’s figure reflects that formula as much as anything the town decides. See state aid.

What these amounts are, and are not

These are OPM estimates of statutory aid rather than audited receipts, and the amounts are revised. Education Cost Sharing is one component of a town’s intergovernmental revenue, not the whole of it, and the grant is set by a statutory formula that is not a per-pupil rate.

The four charts below count students and positions, not dollars, they come from a different source than the six charts above, and they count students on a different basis: the student figure below is the state’s single-day October 1 headcount, while the six spending charts divide by average membership across the school year, from the OPM dataset. The two measures give different student counts for the same town in the same year. Every figure on this page uses one measure or the other, and no figure on this page mixes them. These four charts are built from the Connecticut State Department of Education’s EdSight reporting — the enrollment dashboard and the FTE staffing report — and were collected one school year at a time, because the reports’ own trend view returns only a few years at once. They are reported by school year rather than by fiscal year, so their years do not line up with the spending charts above, and no chart on this page places the two sources on one axis.

Coverage and collection. The school years covered, and the collection method the file records for itself, appear here once the data loads.
The source’s own caveats, carried word for word: these appear here once the data loads.
Which district each chart covers. The districts this file carries for this town appear here once the data loads. Staffing is reported by the district that employs the staff. A town that sends some grades to a regional school district therefore does not have those teachers and administrators in its own district’s count — they are counted in the receiving district. Every chart below names the district each line covers, and no chart adds two districts together.
Grouping the assignment categories is this site’s editorial decision, not the state’s. The state reports positions under assignment categories whose names are its own and whose wording has changed over the years covered. Two charts below combine those categories into named groups so the legend stays readable; the groups, and the exact source categories in each, appear here once the data loads. A different grouping would produce different lines, and the groups are this site’s, not the state’s.

07 Has staffing moved with the number of students?

October 1 Enrollment and Total Reported Staffing

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Source: CT State Department of Education, EdSight — the enrollment dashboard (enrollment.total_enrollment, the October 1 count) and the FTE staffing report (the fte value of every category under fte_staffing.categories, summed). Read one school year at a time. FTE staffing is reported by the district that employs the staff, so a district’s line covers only the positions that district employs. A school year the source has no row for is a gap, left as a break in the line rather than plotted as zero.

Notes

Each line is set to 100 in the first school year its district reports both figures, so the chart shows movement from a common starting point rather than counts. Enrollment is the October 1 count. Staffing is every assignment category the state reports for that district, added together, in full-time equivalent positions. The two series are shown side by side over the same school years; the chart does not establish that either one caused the other.

What a staffing count is, and is not

These are full-time equivalent positions from the state’s October 1 FTE staffing report, summed across every assignment category — not a headcount and not payroll. FTE staffing is reported by the district that employs the staff, and a category boundary can move a person between lines without anyone changing jobs. See staffing counts.

What the chart does not establish

The chart places the two series side by side over the same years. It does not establish that either one caused the other, in either direction. The state reports the counts and not the reasons for them, and nothing on this page identifies why either count moved.

08 What kinds of positions make up the staff?

Reported Positions by Assignment Category, Share of Each Year’s Total

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Source: CT State Department of Education, EdSight FTE staffing report (the fte value of each category under fte_staffing.categories, as a share of the same year’s reported total). Read one school year at a time. Category names are the state’s own and their wording has changed over the years covered; the grouping below is this site’s editorial decision and the file makes no grouping of its own. A category with no row in a given year is a gap in the source rather than a zero, so a year missing a category is a share of the categories that year reports.

Notes

One bar per school year for the district this town runs itself, each bar drawn to full height, so the bars show how the reported positions divide up rather than how many there are. A segment can widen when that group’s own count rises, when another group’s falls, or both. The groups combine the state’s own assignment categories; the source note names every category in each group.

How to read a share, and what a count is not

These are shares of a moving total, so a group’s segment can widen while its own position count falls, and narrow while it rises. The grouping is this site’s editorial decision, the category names are the state’s own and their wording has changed over the years covered, and a different grouping would produce different segments; the source note names every category in each group. A count of positions is not a count of people and says nothing about what any position is paid.

09 Which roles grew and which shrank?

Change in Reported Positions: Administrators and Coordinators, General Education Teachers, Special Education Teachers, and Instructional Specialists

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Source: CT State Department of Education, EdSight FTE staffing report (the fte value of the categories under fte_staffing.categories named here: ). Read one school year at a time. Combining the two administrator categories into one line is this site’s editorial decision; the state reports them separately. Percent change is computed off each group’s own first reported year, and the insight box names those years. A group is a count of positions, not of people or of spending, and it says nothing about what those positions are paid.

Notes

Percent change from each group’s own first reported year for the district this town runs itself, in four of the groups shown in the chart above: administrators, coordinators and department chairs; general education teachers; special education teachers; and instructional specialists who support teachers. The other groups the state reports for this district are not charted here — the insight box below names them, and the composition chart above shows every group. The flat line at zero marks the starting level. A line above it means more reported positions than in the base year, a line below it means fewer. The administrator line combines two of the state’s own categories, named word for word in the source note.

Why percent change is not comparable across groups

Percent change from a base year magnifies movement in a small group: a group of a few positions can post a large percent change from a change of one position, while the same one-position change in a large group barely registers, so the lines are not comparable in size. These are counts of positions, not of people or of dollars, and the chart does not say why any count changed.

10 How many students are there per teaching position?

Students per General Education Teaching Position

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Source: numerator — CT State Department of Education, EdSight enrollment dashboard (enrollment.total_enrollment, the October 1 count). Denominator — EdSight FTE staffing report (the fte value of the general education teacher category under fte_staffing.categories). Read one school year at a time. Both figures come from the same district and the same school year, and both are reported by the district that employs the staff. This ratio is not a class size, not an average class size, and not a figure the state publishes; the state does not report class sizes here and this page does not estimate them.

Notes

The October 1 enrollment count divided by the reported full-time equivalent positions in the state’s general education teacher category, school year by school year. This is not a class size. It is a ratio of two reported totals; it leaves out special education teachers, paraprofessionals and every other category, and it does not account for how positions are deployed across buildings, grades, subjects or programs.

Why this is not class size

Students divided by general-education teaching positions is a district-wide ratio. It is not class size: it takes no account of grade level, of specialist and special-education staff taught alongside, or of how a school actually groups its students.

What this ratio leaves out

It is one reported total divided by another. It excludes special education teachers, paraprofessional instructional assistants, instructional specialists and every other category the state reports, and it does not account for how positions are deployed across buildings, grades, subjects or programs, for part-time schedules, or for students served outside a general education classroom. A district can hold this ratio steady while the number of students in any particular room changes. The state does not publish a class size on this report and this page does not estimate one.

Where both figures come from

Both figures come from the same district and the same school year, and both are reported by the district that employs the staff.

The data behind these charts

Portland’s own series behind the charts on this page, as text. Each table names the dataset it came from and the year of every row. The peer towns and group medians the charts also plot are not repeated here; they are in the same source files, linked in the footer.

Who Portland is compared with

Surrounding towns 4 towns

Cromwell · East Hampton · Glastonbury · Middletown

The towns that share a border or an immediate labor market. Right for regional context; they are not matched on size or wealth.

District Reference Group E 35 towns

Ashford · Beacon Falls · Bozrah · Brooklyn · Canaan · Chaplin · Chester · Colebrook · Coventry · Deep River · East Haddam · Eastford · Franklin · Goshen · Hampton · Hartland · Kent · Lebanon · Lisbon · Litchfield · Morris · Norfolk · North Branford · North Stonington · Preston · Prospect · Salisbury · Scotland · Sharon · Thomaston · Union · Warren · Westbrook · Willington · Woodstock

The CT State Department of Education grouping of school districts on family income, parent education, family structure and enrollment. Last assigned in 2006, and built for education questions rather than town-side spending.

Municipal peers 12 towns

Coventry · Somers · Prospect · Plainville · Woodstock · Beacon Falls · Thomaston · Colchester · Canterbury · Wolcott · Lebanon · Columbia

Town-side spending, debt, reserves, and tax comparisons. Chosen by a published formula over state data rather than by hand: the nearest towns by standardized distance on the stated variables.

School peers 12 towns

Hebron · Somers · Stafford · Coventry · Putnam · Plainfield · Thomaston · Brooklyn · Seymour · Plainville · Prospect · Killingly

Education spending comparisons. Chosen by a published formula over state data rather than by hand: the nearest towns by standardized distance on the stated variables.

Portland is left out of each list above, because a town is never part of the benchmark it is measured against. Group medians elsewhere on the site exclude it the same way. Sources: surrounding towns and District Reference Group are the published groupings; the peer sets are built by a stated formula over CT OPM data (Data/build_peer_sets.py), not selected by hand.

Education spending and enrollment by fiscal year

Education spending and enrollment by fiscal year for Portland, Connecticut
Fiscal year	Enrollment (average daily membership)	Education expenditures	Per pupil	Share of total spending
FY 2013-14	1,436	$20,983,986	$14,617	66.6%
FY 2014-15	1,383	$21,094,353	$15,258	65.9%
FY 2015-16	1,401	$21,778,087	$15,550	66.3%
FY 2016-17	1,385	$21,925,181	$15,832	66.7%
FY 2017-18	1,368	$22,894,841	$16,737	67.1%
FY 2018-19	1,367	$23,787,499	$17,397	67.1%
FY 2019-20	1,330	$24,241,476	$18,228	67.4%
FY 2020-21	1,289	$24,652,973	$19,130	66.9%
FY 2021-22	1,244	$24,973,935	$20,074	65.8%
FY 2022-23	1,232	$26,287,742	$21,338	67.6%

Per pupil here is OPM education expenditures divided by average daily membership. It is not the CT State Department of Education's Net Current Expenditures Per Pupil, which uses a narrower definition of spending and will differ. A town in a regional district reports only the grades it runs. Source: CT OPM, Municipal Fiscal Indicators (ej6f-y2wf) - audited actuals as filed by each town.

Where Portland sits among all 169 Connecticut towns, FY 2022-23

Where Portland sits among all 169 Connecticut towns, FY 2022-23 for Portland, Connecticut
Measure	Portland	Rank, lowest to highest	Statewide median
Total expenditures per resident	$4,127	77 of 169	$4,217
Education expenditures per pupil	$21,338	57 of 169	$22,590
Equalized mill rate	22.83 mills	156 of 169	17.18 mills
Equalized net grand list per resident	$143,058	36 of 169	$189,668
Total fund balance as a share of total expenditures	20.6%	88 of 169	19.9%
Bonded long-term debt per resident	$1,259	59 of 169	$1,741
Intergovernmental revenue as a share of total revenues	20.5%	85 of 169	20.5%

A rank is a position, not a grade. Which end of the list is preferable depends on the measure and on what a reader is trying to find out. Per-pupil spending here is OPM education expenditures divided by average daily membership, which is not the state Department of Education's Net Current Expenditures Per Pupil. Source: CT OPM, Municipal Fiscal Indicators (ej6f-y2wf) - audited actuals as filed by each town. Ranks computed for FY 2022-23 across all 169 towns.

Education Spending

Derived Spending Per Pupil Over Time

Change in Spending Per Pupil, First to Last Reported Year

Spending Per Pupil, Latest Reported Year

Income and Spending Per Pupil, Connecticut Towns Reporting Both

Education as a Share of Total Spending

Education Cost Sharing Per Pupil, Latest Estimated Year

October 1 Enrollment and Total Reported Staffing

Reported Positions by Assignment Category, Share of Each Year’s Total

Change in Reported Positions: Administrators and Coordinators, General Education Teachers, Special Education Teachers, and Instructional Specialists

Students per General Education Teaching Position

The data behind these charts

Who Portland is compared with

Education spending and enrollment by fiscal year

Where Portland sits among all 169 Connecticut towns, FY 2022-23