The reality of library purchases

The reality is...there just isn't enough money to go around. I originally was going to title this posting "the new reality..." then I realized that perhaps the lack of funding wasn't really such a "new" situation. This past week I spent the better part of two hours selecting which new books I would like to purchase. Then I spent the next hour crossing out what I couldn't afford and agonizing over what to keep on the list and what to cut. In the end I went from wanting $3500 in books to purchasing $1046. BIG difference! Of course this was just my English purchases. My Spanish/Bilingual purchases didn't really take much of a hit since there are always less quality Spanish/Bilingual books to choose from. And, given that my bilingual students account for the majority of my student body AND I'm still trying to build my Spanish sections I try balance my spending between English and Spanish purchases.

Well my red pen yielding moments got me to thinking about overall school library budgets. According to School Library Journal's Spending Survey, of 4/1/2009, the median expenditure in 2007-2008 for books and periodicals was $12.65 per pupil. I have a mere $7.70. And that includes an increase I managed to receive in order to purchase some Playaways. The difference between my budget and the median ($2400) would have allowed me to spare the red pen and purchase almost all the books from my list.

Which leads me to ask the question...Why do some districts and/or school administrators value their school libraries more than others?

Thoughts?