The latest Arizona Auditor General’s report for Gilbert Public Schools showed an efficient use of taxpayer funds, particularly its high investment in classroom instruction and low administrative costs.
The fiscal year 2023-24 district spending report highlighted key areas where GPS outperformed both neighboring districts and peer districts of similar size across the state.
Instructional spending accounted for 58.9% of the district’s total expenditures, which is significantly higher than many surrounding school districts.
When including student and instructional support, classroom spending totaled 73.2%.
By comparison, neighboring districts such as Chandler Unified, Mesa Public Schools and Scottsdale Unified reported lower percentages of funds allocated to instruction.
The report indicated that GPS topped the list in classroom spending among local districts and maintained one of the lowest administrative costs at just 8.2%.
“We are higher where we want to be and a little bit lower where we want to be,” Finance Director Jackie Mattinen said, referring to the district’s balance of investing more in instruction and less in administrative overhead.
Board members and administrators celebrated the comparison with Mesa Public Schools, the state’s largest district. Despite Mesa’s significantly larger student body, GPS matched its 8.2% administrative spending rate — a notable achievement given the economies of scale typically available to larger districts.
“It's really quite remarkable that Mesa's nearly double our size and we're matching pretty closely,” Associate Superintendent Bonnie Betz said.
The report also addressed a point of concern: transportation costs. One audit committee member noted that GPS’s transportation spending appeared high for a district its size.
However, administrators clarified that this was largely due to a coding error in which expenses related to the district’s “white fleet” — non-student vehicles such as maintenance and security cars — were incorrectly logged under student transportation.
“We have immediately fixed that,” Betz said, predicting that next year’s data will better reflect the district’s actual transportation spending.
The presentation also included comparisons with 11 peer districts statewide, including Phoenix Union, Paradise Valley Unified, and Tucson Unified. GPS again outpaced the peer average in instructional spending by more than 3%.
“So we're pretty proud of that in comparison,” Mattinen said.
However, the district cautioned that one data point — the reported average teacher salary — should be interpreted carefully.
Inconsistencies in reporting methods across districts, such as whether stipends are included, have led to variations in the numbers. The report showed a gap of $6,000 between GPS and peer districts, but staff emphasized this was likely due to data entry differences rather than real disparities.
“We just don't believe it,” Betz said, referring to the apparent gap, while also explaining that new statewide accounting standards should provide more reliable comparisons starting in FY2025.
We would like to invite our readers to submit their civil comments, pro or con, on this issue. Email AZOpinions@iniusa.org. Tom Blodgett can be reached by email at tblodgett@iniusa.org or follow him @sp_blodgett on X.
Meet Tom Tom Blodgett joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in 2022, when the company acquired Community Impact Newspaper's Phoenix-area properties. Raised in Arizona, he has spent more than 35 years in journalism in the state.
Community: He has served as an instructional professional in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication since 2005, and is editorial adviser to The State Press, the university's independent student media outlet. He also is director of operations for an 18U girls fastpitch softball team from Gilbert.
Education: Arizona State University with a BS in Journalism.
Random Fact: He lived in Belgium during his freshman year of high school.
Hobbies: Tweeting enthusiastically about ASU softball (season-ticket holder) and grumpily about other local sports (pessimistic fan).
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