How does school funding work?
Do you ever wonder where the school’s money comes from? How does the sausage get made (so to speak)? Well I wondered too, so I went and figured it out and this is what I found.
Where does it come from? Where does it go?
With all government stuff, the money comes from taxes, for St. Mary’s County Public Schools, this is a combination of local, state, federal, and other funding sources. The County Commissioners allocate local money. State funds are collected into the state’s general fund. According to Maryland’s “Blueprint for Maryland Future,” school funds are allocated based on how many students are in the school, known as by weight. The proposed budget 2026 shows that a slight majority of total funds come from the state. Approximately 43% comes from local, and another 47% comes from the State. 7% comes from the federal government. Let’s break it down into numbers, in total $141,367,135 co-
mes from local, $154,154,046 from state, and $21,156,165 from federal.
Federal spending and you!
While the state and local governments pay for a variety of things, federal spending is very specific. Usually in the form of grants to build new things like a theater or football field. If you’re a Title One school the federal government will give you slightly more money to help the school out.
Conclusion
That was a VERY brief explanation of how school funding works, this is not comprehensive and I would encourage anyone wanting to learn more about this to not use me as your only source of information. This is very condensed to help ease you into this topic. I went into this thinking this was going to be way easier than it was. I hope that if any of you reading go and search you have more luck than I.
