Again - I think this is misleading and I should have specified. In California, most of the money for schools comes from the state.

So, when I say school budget from LA is 4x the police budget, that is just covering the 21% and 12% part of this graph. Doubling the LA school budget would only increase the total school budget about ~33%

Again - if I was in charge I probably would lower police budgets and raise school budgets - but I think those sharing the slices without being informed are doing a disservice.

Source: https://ed100.org/lessons/whopays

I would love to be corrected on some of these issues, but in general looking at just discretionary funds from a city and ignoring all other funds will lead you to some wild conclusions.

Depending on the state, education might not be the city's job at all. It might be a separate level of government entirely.

It's hard to make comparisons like this because obligations and reporting methodology can vary wildly.