Dearest reader,
Birch Run Area Schools is asking voters on November 3 to renew its existing 0.9-mill sinking fund for another 10 years, covering 2029 through 2038. The district estimates the levy would raise about $432,694 in its first year.
So naturally, I went looking for the ledger.
What I found was not an itemized sinking-fund spending report.
Birch Run's transparency page includes financial documents, but it does not provide a separate check register or a vendor-by-vendor sinking-fund expenditure ledger showing exactly where those dollars went. Its publicly posted audits also do not go back far enough on the current transparency page to give voters a full history of the existing 2019–2028 sinking fund.
That does not mean the money was misspent.
It means the public-facing records do not make the full spending trail easy to see.
And when voters are being asked to renew a dedicated tax for another decade, I think it is perfectly fair to ask:
What did the current sinking fund pay for?
How much was spent each year?
Which projects were funded with it?
And why isn't that information available in one clear, itemized place?
The receipts may exist. But voters should not need a treasure map to find them.
With receipts and respect.
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