Scottsdale Unified cabinet maps district-office functions and spending, shows 17% of expenditures coded to district office

Cabinet members presented a detailed district-office review on June 23, explaining what the district office does, how functions are coded and how FY26 expenditures break down between district-level and school-level spending.

The presentation emphasized that about 17% of FY26 expenditures were coded to district-office functions (non-school site codes), while about 83% supported schools and students directly. Cabinet members acknowledged choices to centralize services (for example, centralized enrollment and some instructional coaching), which can increase district-level coding even when the functions support school operations.

CFO and department heads reviewed a range of programs and services: finance (AFR, invoices, fund compliance), payroll and benefits (biweekly payrolls ~ $7M per pay period), nutrition services (self-sustaining food services that served an estimated 2.3 million meals annually and returns ~18% indirect revenue historically), buildings and maintenance (4 million square feet under roof), transportation (state per-pupil transportation funding does not scale per-mile and remains roughly constant at prior levels), purchasing and warehouse, IT and communications. Cabinet noted some expense increases reflect one-time investments such as a phone-system upgrade, UPS infrastructure on the technology side and a device refresh that create temporary peaks in capital-eligible or one-time spending.

Board members pressed for clarity on definitions used by outside auditors and ballot or legislative language; staff explained different reports use different definitions (e.g., auditor reports may exclude certain fund types and use function codes such as the 1000 instructional function to define instruction). Staff agreed to provide a consolidated view of technology-related software and licensing spend across departments and promised to distribute survey/result data referenced in Spark work in the coming week.

The board thanked staff for transparency and noted the difficulty of direct comparisons with other districts because some peers code or centralize services differently. Cabinet said work will continue to refine coding and to identify additional operational efficiencies where feasible.