📜 Lady Budgetdown: Society Spending Exposed
Dearest Readers,
Lady Budgetdown has now reviewed the Bloomfield Hills teacher agreement and Administrative Council agreement.
Not to create a rivalry.
Not to declare one position more important than another.
Simply to place the contractual provisions side by side and let readers decide what they mean.
And in Bloomfield Hills, the contracts tell a rather layered story.
For 2025–26, the teacher salary schedule begins at $49,592 for a first-step teacher with a bachelor's degree and reaches $111,721 for a Step-14 teacher with a doctorate. Teachers work a 186-day contractual year, and the difference between the top bachelor's and doctorate lanes is more than $19,000 annually.
In other words:
Bloomfield Hills teachers have one of the strongest salary schedules Lady Budgetdown has reviewed, meaningful education lanes and a comparatively short contractual work year.
Teachers may also receive additional compensation for National Board certification, supplemental duties, extended counselor days and temporary service as a building administrator designee.
Administrators work longer calendars—between 200 and 225 days, depending on position—but their agreement adds several separate layers of compensation beyond base salary.
Those additional provisions include:
A district-funded tax-sheltered annuity of $3,500 in 2025–26
$5,750 in 2026–27
$7,000 beginning in 2027–28 and continuing afterward
An additional $3,000 annual longevity TSA for eligible administrators
Degree differentials of $3,000 for MA+30 and $4,250 for a doctorate
A possible $1,500 National Board certification stipend
For an eligible veteran administrator with a doctorate and National Board certification, those provisions could total:
$15,750 annually beyond base salary
And that is before considering insurance, mileage, conferences or other contractual benefits.
The disability provisions also differ significantly.
Administrators receive 100% salary continuation for up to one year after a five-workday waiting period. Teachers may also receive full salary, but their benefit depends on how many leave days they historically accumulated. Depending on prior leave usage, a teacher's salary continuation may fall to 90% or 75%.
The life-insurance difference is equally striking.
Teachers receive $45,000 in district-paid group life insurance.
Administrators receive $200,000.
Retirement provisions also differ. Eligible teachers receive a formula based on years of service, accumulated leave and timely notice. Eligible administrators begin with a $20,000 severance payment after ten years, plus another $500 for each additional year, and also receive $25,000 in retiree life insurance through age 65.
One additional detail deserves attention:
The teacher salary schedule is printed directly inside the agreement.
The administrator agreement describes raises, steps, annuities and stipends—but the actual administrative base-salary grid is placed in a separate linked spreadsheet, rather than reproduced in the contract itself.
So, what stands out most to Lady Budgetdown?
The administrator TSA rising to $7,000 annually.
The additional $3,000 longevity TSA.
The possibility of $15,750 in administrator compensation beyond base salary.
The administrator's guaranteed full-pay salary continuation for one year.
The teacher disability benefit potentially falling to 90% or 75%.
The $200,000 versus $45,000 life-insurance difference.
The teacher salary reaching $111,721 in 2025–26.
And the fact that the administrative base-salary schedule is not printed inside the agreement itself.
Bloomfield Hills teachers have one of the strongest salary schedules we have reviewed, meaningful education lanes and a comparatively short 186-day contract year.
Administrators work longer calendars, but their agreement adds multiple compensation layers beyond base salary—including annual tax-sheltered payments, longevity and degree stipends, guaranteed full-pay short-term disability, substantially larger life insurance and stronger early-career severance benefits.
Different jobs.
Different responsibilities.
Different contracts.
Lady Budgetdown's role is not to tell readers what to think.
Only to make certain they know what the contracts say.
Make of the information what you will.
— Lady Budgetdown
The receipts remain undefeated.