Dearest Reader,
Step Five has brought Lady Budgetdown to the audit: Where projections step aside and the ledger tells us what actually happened. 🪶
Ashley Community Schools finished 2024-25 with $3.57 million in General Fund revenue and $3.68 million in expenditures.
The result?
A $112,508 deficit.
The district began the year with approximately $1.15 million in fund balance and finished with $1.04 million.
Now we turn the page to FY2026.
Ashley's final budget projects another $178,097 deficit, which would bring the fund balance down again, this time to approximately $858,000.
And interestingly enough, the district's own audit gives us some context for the pressure: increased costs, declining student enrollment, and the end of pandemic-related federal funding.
None of this means Ashley is teetering on the edge of financial ruin. Her Ladyship will not be summoning the fiscal undertaker. The district still entered this period with a meaningful reserve.
But reserves are precisely that, reserves.
When expenditures exceed revenues one year and the next budget anticipates doing it again, we're no longer looking at a single troublesome line in the ledger.
We're looking at a direction.
And after everything else we've uncovered about Ashley's declining enrollment, that direction is worth keeping an eye on.
No trumpets. No panic. No scandal.
Just another page of the ledger quietly asking whether today's spending can be sustained by tomorrow's revenue. 🪶
With receipts and respect.
#LadyBudgetdown #AshleyCommunitySchools #GratiotCounty #MichiganSchools #SchoolFinance #FollowTheReceipts #WithReceiptsAndRespect