Long Island school costs: what districts reported spending per adjusted pupil

DistrictFacts calculated NYSED Fiscal Profile actual spending for 121 Long Island districts. Median $36,751 per adjusted pupil; periods and denominators differ from Newsday’s 2026–27 budget projection.

Newsday’s October 5, 2026 analysis projected an average of $41,913 per student for Long Island school districts in 2026–27. It calculated that estimate from voter-approved budgets and projected enrollment reported in the New York State Education Department’s 2026–27 Property Tax Report Card.

DistrictFacts calculated a separate measure from NYSED’s Fiscal Profile for 2024–25, the latest year in the pinned workbook. Across 121 districts with an exact source match and a usable adjusted enrollment value, the median was $36,751 per adjusted pupil. The current DistrictFacts Nassau–Suffolk registry has 125 district identities; 4 do not have a usable exact match in this year’s Fiscal Profile, and they are excluded rather than counted as zero.

The measure is district-reported total expenditures less NYSED’s “Other (includes interfund transfers)” category, divided by DCAADM, NYSED’s adjusted membership count. The subtraction removes transfers among a district’s own funds, along with the smaller other items grouped in the same category. NYSED compiles the figures from district reports; they are not independent audits.

The denominator changes the comparison

Newsday’s 2026–27 estimate and DistrictFacts’ FY2024–25 measure cover different periods and divide different spending totals by different enrollment measures. Newsday also noted that projected enrollment does not include all students attending schools outside their home district, and that no projected enrollment figures were released for Sagaponack and Wainscott. The two regional figures should not be read as a year-over-year increase or decrease.

District-level values vary. On the DistrictFacts measure, Fire Island reported $140,371 per adjusted pupil, Bridgehampton $217,280, and Floral Park-Bellerose $23,556. Those figures do not by themselves describe the services a district provides, a homeowner’s school-tax bill, or whether spending was effective.

Newsday’s story also describes tuition paid for students attending charter, special-education and other out-of-district schools. Costs and student counts can be recorded in different places, so a per-pupil figure depends on which expenditures and which pupil count a calculation uses. The underlying records do not, by themselves, show whether a particular spending level is appropriate.

Sources and method

DistrictFacts calculated the 2024–25 measure from the NYSED Fiscal Profile master workbook: column AK (total expenditures) minus column AF (other, including interfund transfers), divided by column AO (DCAADM). District identities were matched using NYSED BEDS codes. The median is the middle value of the 121 usable district records.

This report was calculated from public records by the DistrictFacts Data Desk. Each district page links to its reported figures and source. A reader can request a correction from this story.

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