What does the Clark County School District spend the most money on?

It should come as a shock to no one that bookstores are where the Clark County School School District spent the most using district credit cards.

Perhaps more surprising is that a single airline ranked as the fourth-highest business category for spending with district-issued credit cards, also known as p-cards, in the 2022-2023 fiscal year, public records show.

The district uses p-cards for instructional and work-related goods as well as for travel. The cards are issued to schools, programs and departments within the district.

P-cards purchased $1.25 million in flights from Southwest Airlines, according to a Review-Journal analysis of purchase-card transaction records, which were obtained through a public records request. The records show that an individual airline often will have its own merchant category code, which can be used to track spending, while many other businesses of a similar type get lumped together in the same category.

The district spent an additional $385,000 on other air carriers, records show.

Spending with bus lines came in tenth highest at $826,200.

The top 10 business types for p-card spending, as identified by the category codes used by credit card companies, were the following:

— Book stores, $15 million

— Stationary-office supplies-printing and writing paper, $3.3 million

— Schools and educational services not classified elsewhere, $2.6 million

— Southwest Airlines, $1.25 million

— Charitable organizations and social services, $924,000

— Direct marketing-combination catalog-retail merchandise, $919,500

— Home supply warehouse stores, $896,600

— Business services not classified elsewhere, $861,700

— Grocery stores and supermarkets, $851,600

— Bus lines, $826,200

Total district p-card spending was $48.9 million.

Contact Mary Hynes at mhynes@reviewjournal.com or at 702-383-0336. Follow @MaryHynes1 on X.