👑 TRAVERSE CITY AREA PUBLIC SCHOOLS STEP 4: WHERE DOES THE GENERAL FUND GO?
So far, I've looked at TCAPS revenue, staffing, and the district's $100,000+ compensation report.
For Step 4, I opened the district's 2024–25 Personnel Expenditures and Operating Expenditures reports.
And this time, the question is simple:
Where did the General Fund money go?
TCAPS reported $124,855,915 in total General Fund expenditures for 2024–25.
Of that:
👥 Personnel Expenditures: $107,845,502 - 86.38%
But there's an important distinction here.
Personnel expenditures do NOT mean salaries.
Here's the breakdown:
💵 Salaries: $60,879,307 - 48.76%
🏥 Employee Insurance Benefits: $15,097,556 - 12.09%
🏛� FICA / Retirement / Unemployment / Workers' Compensation: $31,345,537 - 25.11%
📋 Other Personnel Expenditures: $523,102 - 0.42%
So approximately 86 cents of every General Fund dollar was classified as a personnel expenditure, while approximately 14 cents was non-personnel.
Now let's look at the General Fund by function.
📚 Instruction: $71,483,946 - 57.25%
🔧 Operations & Maintenance: $14,338,295 - 11.48%
🏫 School Administration: $8,996,652 - 7.21%
📖 Instructional Staff Support: $7,749,873 - 6.21%
🚌 Transportation: $7,490,523 — 6.00%
👥 Pupil Support Services: $5,846,692 - 4.68%
⚙️ Central & Other Support: $4,659,489 - 3.73%
💼 Business Services: $2,415,642 - 1.93%
🏛� General Administration: $846,903 - 0.68%
There's something important about these two sets of numbers:
They are two different ways of looking at the same General Fund.
The personnel report tells us what type of cost it was, salary, insurance, retirement, etc.
The operating report tells us what function the money supported instruction, transportation, administration, operations, and so on.
So don't add the two sides of the graphic together. Lady Budgetdown enjoys numbers, but even she doesn't spend the same dollar twice.
And I think that distinction matters, because a number like 86.38% personnel can sound enormous until we actually open the ledger and see what's included in it.
That's the point of this exercise. Not just how much was spent. But what the numbers actually mean.
Four steps into Traverse City, and the picture is getting clearer.
There are still more pages in this ledger. 🪶
Source: Traverse City Area Public Schools Transparency Reports — 2024–25 Personnel Expenditures & Operating Expenditures, General Fund.
With receipts and respect.
#LadyBudgetdown #TraverseCity #TCAPS #MichiganSchools #SchoolFinance #EducationFunding #TheReceipts