This measure shows a district’s change in group A weighted student count The average number of full-time students enrolled at the district in the first 100 days each school year. Districts approved by the State Board of Education to operate on a 200-day calendar use the average for the first 200 days.

Group A and B weights are described in the “Tell me more” section below. (WSC) over a 1- and 4-year period. Districts receive most of their State and local tax revenues based on their weighted student count and a per student State equalization funding formula. A single-year substantial decrease in WSC, or smaller but repeated decreases over more years, may expose a district to higher financial risk due to the loss of student-count-generated revenue. Revenue losses without similar levels of spending reductions will decrease available reserves. Districts with low or no reserves must react quickly to revenue losses to avoid overspending legal budget limits and available resources. In fiscal year (FY) 2021, many Arizona school districts experienced unprecedented decreases in WSCs due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The financial risk of those decreases may not have been as significant as similar decreases in other years due to available federal relief monies. Many districts’ WSCs have increased back to where they were prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Arizona school district funding formula increases all districts' student counts with a group A weight and increases specific student counts for special needs with group B weights.

• Group A weights provide funding for common student needs The Group A definition in A.R.S. §15-901 includes programs for career exploration, specific learning disability, emotional disability, mild intellectual disability, remedial education, speech/language impairments, developmental delay, homebound pupils, bilingual pupils, pupils with other health impairments, and gifted pupils. across all districts and are determined based on the total number of K-8 and 9-12 students, respectively. As shown in the table below, group A weights are higher for smaller districts to adjust for their need to spread costs over fewer students, are higher for preschool students with disabilities, and are higher for 9-12 students compared to K-8 students

  District size	Weights per student count*
  	K-8	9-12
  1–99 student count	1.399	1.559
  100–499 student count	1.278 to 1.398	1.398 to 1.558
  500–599 student count	1.158 to 1.278	1.268 to 1.398
  600 or more student count	1.158	1.268
  Preschool students with disabilities	1.450

  *There are slightly higher weights for small, isolated districts as defined in A.R.S. §15-901(B)(28).

• Group B weights, including a weight for gifted students, provide funding primarily for individual students with specialized educational needs

  The Group B definition from A.R.S. §15-901 includes educational improvements for pupils in kindergarten programs and grades 1-3, educational programs for autism, a hearing impairment, a moderate intellectual disability, multiple disabilities, multiple disabilities with severe sensory impairment, orthopedic impairments, preschool severe delay, a severe intellectual disability, and emotional disabilities for school age pupils enrolled in private special education programs or in school district programs for children with severe disabilities or visual impairment, English learners enrolled in a program to promote English language proficiency pursuant to section 15-752, and students who meet the eligibility requirements established under the National School Lunch and Child Nutrition Acts (42 United States Code sections 1751 through 1793) for free or reduced-price lunches, or an equivalent measure recognized for participating in the Federal free and reduced-price lunch program and other school programs dependent on a poverty measure, including the community eligibility provision for which free and reduced-price lunch data is not available. A.R.S. §15-943 includes specific student count weights for each of these specialized education needs and for gifted students.

  The gifted definition from A.R.S. §15-901 includes education programs for gifted pupils who score at or above the 97th percentile, based on national norms, on a test adopted by the state board of education.

  . Group B weights range from 0.007 to 7.947 and is intended to increase district funding to meet the additional needs of the identified students in each specialized educational need category.

Our analysis looks at each district’s change in group A WSC as it is used in the largest portions of student-count-generated formula funding from State and local taxes. For fiscal year 2023, districts are receiving approximately $5,483 Funding per group A WSC comes from State and local sources based on approximately $4,775 in base support and $708 in classroom site allocation. per group A weighted student count through base support and classroom site funding.

Decreases in WSC will have varying effects on a district’s financial risk, depending on the size of the district and the length of time over which the decreases occur. To account for this, as shown in the table below, we used multiple percentage thresholds, based on district size, to determine risk related to WSC declines and used different percentage declines for a 4-year change than we used for a 1-year change. Some small and very small districts increase their local property taxes with a small school adjustment A.R.S. §15-949(A) allows districts with a K-8 student count of 125 or less or a 9-12 student count of 100 or less, to increase their budget limits in excess of the State funding formula without voter approval.

Risk related to the loss of a small school budget adjustment and unfunded small school budget adjustments because of frozen tax rates is covered in the Small school budget limit adjustments measure of our analysis. . Generally, the ability to levy a small school adjustment reduces risk related to WSC declines; however, districts that qualify for State equalization assistance Arizona's equalization formula provides the base funding for districts through locally levied property taxes and State-appropriated monies. and are not able to increase their small school adjustment due to a frozen tax rate will lose funding when WSC declines. Therefore, most districts eligible for a small school adjustment are not considered high risk, even when experiencing WSC declines.

* FY 2022 students attending, used to classify districts into size categories, are determined using our Office’s analysis of Arizona Department of Education (ADE)-provided, school-district-reported attending average daily membership (ADM) counts. That analysis includes students from one Arizona school district attending another district under a tuition agreement in the district where they attend.

The applicable WSCs from the most recent 5 years were used to calculate the 1- and 4-year change.

FY 2019 through FY 2021 WSC was obtained from the Arizona Department of Education’s APOR 55-1 report for each district and fiscal year. FY 2022 and FY 2023 WSC was obtained from ADE’s BSA 55-1 report. Current year group A WSC is the count as of November 21, 2022 used to calculate districts’ November payments for the current fiscal year. Final current year WSC information will not be available until after the end of the fiscal year.

Frozen tax rate data was obtained from the Property Tax Oversight Commission’s report, 2022 Review of School Districts that Exceed the 1 Percent State Constitutional Limit.