Dearest Readers,
Novi Community School District has made one thing quite clear: personnel costs are central to its current budget challenge.
That makes one question especially worthy of examination:
When personnel costs must be reduced, where are those reductions actually falling?
Let us begin with the classroom.
Novi teachers received a 1.5% contractual increase for 2025–26 and are scheduled for 1.25% for 2026–27.
Over the longer term, Michigan Department of Education data shows Novi's average teacher salary increased from $68,586 in 2014–15 to $76,905 in 2024–25, an increase of $8,319, or 12.13%, over ten years.
But dollars alone do not tell the entire story.
Over the comparison period, CPI-U inflation was approximately 35.83%. In other words, while the average teacher salary increased 12.13%, prices increased approximately 35.83%.
That leaves teacher salary growth approximately 23.70 percentage points below inflation.
Put another way, the average salary went up in dollars, but it did not keep pace with the rising cost of goods and services. Purchasing power declined.
And now Novi is offering a $60,000 voluntary separation incentive aimed at higher-pay-level veteran educators, employees the district itself recognizes as carrying considerable experience and institutional knowledge.
Now let us turn a few pages in the ledger.
Superintendent Ben Mainka's reported gross pay increased from $255,426.51 in 2024 to $295,360.98 in 2025, an increase of $39,934.47, or 15.6%, in one year.
To be precise, that is the change in Novi's reported gross pay, not necessarily a 15.6% contractual salary increase.
Novi's assistant-superintendent compensation also rose materially. Based upon the district's transparency reports, the two continuing 2024 positions map into 2025 reported gross-pay figures suggesting increases of approximately 19% to 29%. Because Novi's 2025 report does not identify which amount belongs to which department, Lady Budgetdown will not assign an individual percentage where the public record does not permit one.
Then there is administrative staffing.
Using standardized 2024 - 25 NCES data:
Novi: 6,770 students - 23 district-administrator FTE
Northville: approximately 7,000 students - 14 district-administrator FTE
Troy: 12,283 students - 24 district-administrator FTE
Novi therefore reports approximately 3.4 district administrators per 1,000 students, compared with approximately 2.0 in Northville and 1.95 in Troy.
None of these numbers, standing alone, proves that Novi has too many administrators. They do not establish that anyone is overpaid. Nor do they establish that the voluntary separation program is financially unsound.
But they do invite a question.
If Novi must reduce personnel costs to address its financial challenges, and veteran educators are being offered incentives to leave, has district-level administration and executive compensation been examined with the same intensity as classroom staffing?
Perhaps there is a perfectly satisfactory answer.
But when difficult choices are being made about the people standing in front of students each day, it seems only reasonable that taxpayers should be able to see where the reductions occurred, where they did not, and why.
After all, Dear Readers, a ledger becomes considerably more interesting when one examines both sides of the page.
With receipts and respect. 🪶