Dell Rapids School District 49-3

What the Numbers Say About Dell Rapids School District 49-3

Dell Rapids School District 49-3 is a small school district in South Dakota, serving 984 students at an estimated per-pupil spending of $12,428. Estimated average teacher salary — derived from instructional expenditure variable Z33 divided by teacher FTE — is $63,811, placing the district in the lower-spending tier of NCES F-33 respondents. NCES LEAID 4618120 references the FY2022 Common Core of Data Local Education Agency Finance Survey.

Relative to the South Dakota statewide average of $67,949, teacher pay in Dell Rapids School District 49-3 runs materially below the state benchmark — a 6.1% gap, and below the national instructional-salary estimate of $82,292 (22.5% differential). Among enrolling districts in South Dakota, it pays more than 28% of them. Licensing reciprocity, collective bargaining strength, and state aid formulas all contribute to where a district lands in these tiers.

On the budget side, Dell Rapids School District 49-3 reports $12.2M in total expenditure against $13.6M in revenue, with instructional salaries accounting for 34% of spending — a compensation-to-budget ratio that signals how much of each tax dollar reaches classroom educators. Regular-program teacher salary outlay is $2.8M, special-education teacher pay is $0.2M. These figures are district-level aggregates from F-33, not individual contracts — step-and-column schedules, stipends, and collectively-bargained differentials sit underneath these totals.