How to allocate scarce resources for an optimal outcome is of keen interest to those who set the budgets in public education. Simply throwing money at schools is not enough; it is important that money is spent where it will do the most good. This study considers Washington State public school districts and examines how the share of per-student expenditures in seven budget categories relates to on-time high school graduation rates. It is an investigative study, exploring whether there is enough evidence to merit further, more in-depth research. Using budget and graduation information from academic years 1997-98 through 2016-17 for a representative sample of 63 districts, I estimated several dynamic panel models. From these I identified which budget categories most heavily impact graduation rates, and over what time horizon the impacts are apparent. I found no significant correlation and concluded that this would not be a fruitful avenue for further research
