📜 ALPENA PUBLIC SCHOOLS: TEN YEARS LATER
Lady Budgetdown packed the ledger and headed north. Alpena, you're up.
Same years. Same categories. Same math.
From 2014–15 to 2024–25:
Enrollment fell from 3,849 to 3,607.37 pupils, a decrease of 6.3%.
Meanwhile, on a per-pupil basis:
💰 All-sources revenue:
$9,264 → $15,378
Up 66.0%
📚 Instruction:
$5,439 → $8,120
Up 49.3%
🏛� Business & administration:
$1,133 → $1,940
Up 71.2%
⚙️ Operations & maintenance:
$892 → $1,352
Up 51.6%
🍎 Average teacher salary:
$54,457 → $52,462
Down 3.7%
Now comes the part Lady Budgetdown always checks: inflation. CPI-U increased 35.83% over the same period.
That means all-sources revenue per pupil grew 30.2 percentage points faster than inflation. Business & administration grew 35.4 points faster.
Average teacher salary?
It didn't merely fail to keep pace with inflation. It went backward before inflation was even considered.
That doesn't tell us why. And average teacher salary can be affected by changes in the makeup of the teaching workforce, so it should not be confused with what happened to any individual teacher.
But it certainly tells us where to look next. And Lady Budgetdown does enjoy knowing where to look.
Less students. More money.
Let's follow the numbers.
With receipts and respect. 👑
#LadyBudgetdown #AlpenaPublicSchools #SchoolFinance #FollowTheMoney #EducationFunding #MichiganSchools #WithReceiptsAndRespect