BOCES service expenditures are comprised of six categories: occupational education, special education, itinerant personnel, general education, instructional support, and non-instructional support. School districts decide each year which services they will request BOCES to provide. Revenues to support most of the expenditures in each category are general fund revenues from the participating districts. A small portion of the revenues in some of the categories is from federal and State grant sources. Certain federal vocational education funds are included in the occupational educational expense category, as are some federal and State funds in the special education expense category. Most grant revenues are budgeted in the special aid fund. However, where grant funds are provided to support an ongoing BOCES service like occupational education, the funds are often included in the service budget.

Special education is usually the largest service in most BOCES, averaging 38 percent of total service expenditures. School districts have been strongly encouraged in recent years to operate their own classes for students with mild disabling conditions. The students who attend shared classes at BOCES tend to be those with more severe conditions and, therefore, require programs which are costly. Thus, while the number of children who are attending shared classes for special education has decreased in most BOCES, total expenditure has increased.

Occupational education is usually the second largest service in a BOCES in terms of district expenditures, consisting of about 14 percent of service expenditures. School districts are required to provide an occupational education program. Almost all districts send some of their students to BOCES for occupational education rather than operate a full local program. Because of the large expense for equipment in most occupational courses and because student abilities and interests require a variety of vocational training, BOCES is ideally suited for providing shared occupational training.

The other categories of shared services are generally of lesser magnitude but they significantly enrich local programs. Itinerant services are the smallest category in most BOCES, an average of 5 percent. This varies greatly, however, in that a BOCES with a number of small districts will often have a large itinerant expenditure, while BOCES with larger enrollment districts will have a smaller expenditure. Larger enrollment districts generally have little need for shared personnel from BOCES because they have enough students to employ full-time personnel. However, most districts are using part-time persons from BOCES to provide related services including psychologists, speech therapists and physical therapists, for district-operated special education classes.

The fourth category of services is general education, representing about 8 percent of service expenditure. General education services include shared summer school, alternative education classes for at-risk students, interactive distance learning instruction, arts education and programs for gifted students. This category of BOCES service has been increasing as districts seek BOCES programs to enhance district instruction of students.

The fifth category is instructional support, with 18 percent of the expenditure for shared programs. The area is composed of services to support district instruction, such as educational communications and technology-related programs to assist student learning, and curriculum and staff development to enhance teacher skills. This category of BOCES services has also been increasing, especially instructional technology.

The final category of services is non-instructional support. The services in this group support the management and operational functions of districts: administrative computing including payroll, accounting, and student census and scheduling; safety-risk management to promote healthy and safe facilities; transportation and contract negotiations.  These services account for 17 percent of  school district
expenditures.