HOLLY AREA SCHOOLS: WHO'S PAYING FOR THE MESSAGE? 🪶
Dearest readers,
A reader recently dropped a rather interesting breadcrumb onto Lady Budgetdown's ledger. It involved Holly Area Schools and an outside communications firm.
Naturally, Lady Budgetdown went looking for the receipts. And there are quite a few.
The firm is Byrum & Fisk Advocacy Communications.
This isn't simply a company that prints newsletters or maintains a website. Byrum & Fisk describes itself as a full-service strategic communications firm specializing in media relations, crisis management and campaigns. The firm says its work has helped clients win campaigns and ballot initiatives, and it specifically gives the example of working with a school district leader seeking additional funding through a bond proposal.
Its services include message development, media relations, campaigns and elections, digital communications, marketing and advertising.
Holly Area Schools has been paying Byrum & Fisk with taxpayer dollars.
How much?
From the check registers Lady Budgetdown was able to verify:
2021–22 — $25,428.33 verified
(Only the fourth-quarter register was available for review.)
2022–23 — $91,568.60
2023–24 — $101,976.00
TOTAL VERIFIED: $218,972.93
And let us be very clear about that number.
That is $218,972.93 in taxpayer dollars paid by Holly Area Schools to an outside communications firm in the registers Lady Budgetdown could verify.
It is not necessarily everything Holly has paid Byrum & Fisk.
In fact, it almost certainly isn't the complete history. Holly's own records show the firm serving as a district media contact beyond the years covered by these registers.
But one particular receipt caused Lady Budgetdown to adjust her spectacles.
April 22, 2022.
Holly Area Schools issued Byrum & Fisk a check for:
$25,428.33.
Eleven days later, on May 3, Holly voters went to the polls to decide a $97 million school bond proposal. The check register documents that April 22 payment.
Now, Lady Budgetdown does NOT have an invoice showing what that $25,428.33 purchased. And Lady Budgetdown is not going to invent an answer. But she is certainly going to ask the question.
Because seven days after that check was issued, and four days before the election, Holly Area Schools published a communication about the bond proposal.
In its April 29 message, the district reminded residents of the May 3 election, described the projects the $97 million proposal would fund, emphasized that it would not increase the existing bond millage rate, highlighted the district's fiscal record and responded to information being circulated by opponents.
The district wrote that "some misinformation" about the proposal had recently been mailed to Holly residents and directed readers to what the district described as the facts.
The bond webpage itself states:
"Paid for by Holly Area Schools."
In other words, taxpayer-funded communication about a taxpayer-funded bond proposal.
And this is where another recent Lady Budgetdown rabbit hole becomes rather relevant.
Michigan campaign-finance law generally prohibits public bodies from using public resources for campaign expenditures, but specifically allows the production or dissemination of factual information concerning issues relevant to the public body's function.
That distinction matters.
Lady Budgetdown is not alleging Holly Area Schools violated campaign-finance law. Nor is Lady Budgetdown claiming that the April 22 Byrum & Fisk payment paid for the April 29 bond communication.
The receipts currently available don't answer that. They do, however, raise some perfectly reasonable questions.
What exactly did Holly Area Schools purchase with the $25,428.33 taxpayer-funded payment to Byrum & Fisk issued eleven days before voters decided a $97 million bond proposal?
Did any portion of that payment involve the May 3 bond election?
Did Byrum & Fisk draft, edit, review, distribute or advise Holly Area Schools on communications concerning the bond before the election?
Did the firm have any role in the district's April 29 response to what Holly characterized as "misinformation"?
Who determined what information voters would receive from the district, Holly administrators, Byrum & Fisk, or some combination of the two?
And what exactly did Holly taxpayers receive for the $91,568.60 paid to Byrum & Fisk during 2022–23?
What did they receive for another $101,976.00 during 2023–24?
Those questions become particularly interesting because Byrum & Fisk wasn't invisible in Holly's bond communications.
The day after voters approved the $97 million proposal, Holly issued a press release announcing the victory.
The media contact listed on that release?
Christopher Behnan.
Byrum & Fisk Advocacy Communications.
The firm remained the media contact when Holly announced the schedule for the voter-approved bond projects the following month.
And Byrum & Fisk's own description of its work is worth remembering.
The firm says its political-campaign background shapes its communications approach, that it approaches projects like campaigns, and specifically mentions helping school district leaders seeking funding through bond proposals.
None of that answers what Holly's $25,428.33 check purchased.
Which brings Lady Budgetdown to perhaps the most important question of all:
When Michigan law permits a public school district to spend taxpayer dollars providing factual information about its own ballot proposal, where exactly is the line between informing the public and professionally managing the message?
Lady Budgetdown has the receipts for the checks.
What the receipts do not tell us is what taxpayers purchased with them.
And when $25,428.33 in taxpayer money goes to a professional communications firm eleven days before voters decide a $97 million bond proposal, Lady Budgetdown believes taxpayers are perfectly entitled to ask.
So we are asking. 🪶
Holly Area Schools
SOURCES:
Holly Area Schools — Accounts Payable Check Registers, FY 2021–22 through FY 2023–24
Holly Area Schools — May 2022 Bond Proposal / April 29, 2022 Community Communication
Holly Area Schools — May 4, 2022, "Bond approved to prepare all Bronchos for success"
Holly Area Schools — June 8, 2022, "Holly Area Schools announces schedule of voter-approved bond projects"
Byrum & Fisk Advocacy Communications — About / Services
Michigan Campaign Finance Act — MCL 169.257
#LadyBudgetdown #WithReceiptsAndRespect #HollyAreaSchools #HollySchools #SchoolFinance #TaxpayerDollars #SchoolBonds #PublicEducation #Transparency #Accountability #FollowTheMoney #MichiganSchools