Dearest readers, every so often Your Lady is told that the receipts cannot possibly say what they rather plainly say.🪶
A few readers have repeatedly insisted that Lady Budgetdown is treating River Rouge unfairly. I can assure you that I am not.
📌 They have said the figures taken directly from River Rouge's own transparency page are somehow not factual.
📌 They have said River Rouge's out-of-state travel is normal for districts of similar size.
📌 And they have said the superintendent's pay and total compensation are in line with leaders of comparable districts.
So Your Lady did what she always does when a claim lands on the desk:
I opened a fresh ledger.
But I did not begin with compensation or travel. That would allow someone to accuse Your Lady of choosing districts simply because their numbers produced a convenient result.
I began with enrollment.
River Rouge reported 2,760.32 average pupil FTE in Michigan's 2024–25 Bulletin 1014. I then identified every traditional Michigan public school district within 100 pupils of that figure.
That produced 15 districts serving essentially the same number of pupils. The enrollment ledger chose the comparison group. Everything else came afterward.
📜 THE COMMUNITIES
These districts may serve similar numbers of pupils, but the communities supporting them are remarkably different.
River Rouge has:
• The smallest resident population: 7,396
• The smallest combined State Equalized Value: $136,454,052
• The lowest combined SEV per pupil: $49,434
SEV is not the tax rate. It is a measure of the property-value base located within the district.
For comparison, Gaylord serves nearly the same number of pupils but has a combined SEV of $1.325 billion. Nearly ten times River Rouge's property-tax base.
📜 THE FUNDING
Despite having the smallest property-tax base, River Rouge reports the highest General Fund revenue per pupil from all sources:
• State: $13,695
• Local: $2,111
• Federal: $1,230
• All sources: $17,036 per pupil
That does not mean River Rouge has an enormous local tax base. The first graphic demonstrates precisely the opposite.
Michigan's funding system uses state aid to help support districts with limited local property wealth, while federal dollars may reflect particular student and community needs. Nor does it mean that every revenue dollar is unrestricted or interchangeable.
It does mean that, among these similarly sized districts, River Rouge reports the most General Fund revenue per pupil from all sources.
📜 THE SUPERINTENDENT
Then Your Lady opened the compensation reports posted by the districts themselves.
River Rouge reported:
• Superintendent W-2 Medicare wages: $483,314.38
• Superintendent total compensation: $705,172.83
• Deputy superintendent wages: $316,670.53
• Combined superintendent-level wages: $799,984.91
This is BEFORE any other compensation.
Source Link: https://riverrougeschools.org/.../employee_compensation.pdf
River Rouge's superintendent is not merely "in line" with the leaders of these similarly sized districts.
The superintendent has the highest reported wages and the highest total compensation in the comparison, by a substantial margin.
The next-highest superintendent wage was Harper Woods at $294,096.09. Its superintendent's calculated total compensation was $438,498.79.
And when River Rouge's superintendent and deputy superintendent are combined, their wages alone approach $800,000.
That figure does not include their full combined retirement, insurance and other employer-paid compensation.
📜 THE TRAVEL
Finally, Your Lady examined the district-posted out-of-state travel reports.
River Rouge reported $63,568.51.
Source Link: https://riverrougeschools-cdn.fxbrt.com/.../out_of_state...
The next-highest district was Harper Woods at $13,093.67.
River Rouge's total was nearly five times the next-highest district and more than the other four districts reporting travel combined.
So no, the records in this comparison do not show River Rouge's travel spending falling comfortably within the norm for similarly sized districts.
They show River Rouge standing well beyond it.
And that brings us back to the original complaint. Is Lady Budgetdown treating River Rouge unfairly?
📌Your Lady did not create River Rouge's compensation report.
📌Your Lady did not create its travel report.
📌Your Lady did not write Bulletin 1014.
📌Your Lady did not determine the Census population or the property-value base.
📌And Your Lady did not select comparison districts based on what their superintendents earned.
The enrollment figures selected them first.
The remaining ledgers revealed that River Rouge has the smallest resident population, the smallest property-tax base, the highest revenue per pupil, the highest-paid superintendent and, among the supplied reports, the highest out-of-state travel total.
Those are not opinions.
Those are the figures posted by the districts and reported by the government agencies responsible for collecting them.
The fair question is not why Lady Budgetdown wrote the the numbers down. The fair question is why River Rouge's numbers stand so far apart from districts serving essentially the same number of pupils.
With receipts, and, as always, with respect. 👑🪶
River Rouge Schools River Rouge Schools
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