📜 LADY BUDGETDOWN: FREELAND: DUES, ASSOCIATIONS & LOBBYING
We've followed some pretty big numbers through Freeland's ledger.
This time, the numbers are much smaller.
But transparency isn't only about the millions. 🔎
For 2024–25, Freeland Community School District reported:
💰 $13,643.04
in district-paid dues and association fees.
The largest expense was the Michigan Association of School Boards at $8,432.19.
Other reported expenses included:
Tri Valley Conference - $1,500.00
Michigan Association of School Administrators - $1,395.85
Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals - $825.00
MAPT - $160.00
Michigan School Business Officials - $150.00
Freeland Chamber of Commerce - $125.00
MIAAA - $55.00
But there's another disclosure worth looking at.
🏛� DISTRICT-PAID LOBBYING
Freeland reports payments to the School Equity Caucus as lobbying costs for three consecutive school years:
2022–23 - $900
2023–24 - $1,000
2024–25 - $1,000
Three-year reported total: $2,900
And here's where reading the receipts carefully becomes important.
🪶 ONE $1,000 PAYMENT - OR TWO?
Freeland's 2024–25 Dues & Associations disclosure includes $1,000 for the School Equity Caucus as part of its $13,643.04 total.
The district's separate 2024–25 District Paid Lobbying Costs disclosure also reports $1,000 to the School Equity Caucus.
The records we have do not establish that those were two separate payments.
So we're not going to add them together and tell you Freeland spent $2,000.
Could they be separate? Possibly.
Could the same $1,000 expenditure simply appear in two required disclosure categories? Also possibly.
The receipts don't answer that question, so neither will Lady Budgetdown. 😉
📜 THE TAKEAWAY
Compared with Freeland's overall budget, these are small amounts.
But taxpayers should still be able to see where public dollars go, whether it's $10 million, $10,000 or $1,000.
And there's another lesson buried in these records:
Finding a number is only half the job.
Understanding what the number actually represents matters just as much.
No double-counting.
No assumptions.
No manufactured outrage.
Just another page of the public ledger brought into the daylight.
With receipts and respect. 🪶
Freeland Community School District
#LadyBudgetdown #FreelandSchools #SaginawCounty #SchoolFinance #EducationTransparency #PublicRecords #FollowTheMoney