The increasing use of school advisory councils for budgetary decision making is an obvious trend in new patterns of school governance. As decision makers, council members are lobbied by groups and individuals desiring funding for their particular interests. Problems that need attention are judiciously considered as competing interests vie for limited resources. A challenge then for the councils is to make spending choices that are most likely to improve learning outcomes for all students. Examining allocation choices over accountability dollars elicits the school advisory councils' general preference for possible expenditures. This study focuses on School Advisory Councils (SACs) in a single Florida school district and their current limited opportunities for decision making regarding spending choices for school improvement. It explores spending choices of a negligible amount of the total resources allocated to schools. The primary focus of this study was the SACs' projected budgets for accountability dollars. The sample included SAC budgets for 186 schools (22 senior high, 38 middle, and 126 elementary). The allocated budget items were reviewed for emerging patterns using a data reduction process to sort the items into categories. The findings from this study provide two major points. The first is that SACs take particular care in considering spending priorities for their accountability funds. The second key finding is that there does not seem to be a systemic understanding of what works in school improvement spending. (Contains 7 figures and 7 tables.)