MANCHESTER COMMUNITY SCHOOLS: THE LEDGER IS OPEN
After Lady Budgetdown's little weekend excursion into township finances, I thought it might be wise to return to the schoolhouse before anyone got too comfortable. 🪶
So I picked another Michigan district and opened the same ten-year ledger I have been using everywhere else.
This time:
MANCHESTER COMMUNITY SCHOOLS
District 81080
And, well...
The numbers gave me a few questions.
From 2014-15 to 2024-25:
🎓 STUDENT ENROLLMENT
1,121 → 680.27
Down 440.73 pupils
DOWN 39.32%
That is a substantial enrollment decline.
But while the number of students fell, several per-pupil financial measures moved sharply in the opposite direction.
💰 ALL-SOURCES REVENUE PER PUPIL
$9,955 → $17,023
UP 71.00%
35.17 percentage points above inflation
📚 INSTRUCTION PER PUPIL
$6,297 → $9,625
UP 52.85%
17.02 points above inflation
🏛� BUSINESS & ADMINISTRATION PER PUPIL
$1,276 → $2,608
UP 104.39%
68.56 points above inflation
🔧 OPERATIONS & MAINTENANCE PER PUPIL
$1,258 → $2,273
UP 80.68%
44.85 points above inflation
And then Lady Budgetdown arrived at the teacher salary line.
🍎 AVERAGE TEACHER SALARY
$61,636 → $58,983
DOWN $2,653.
DOWN 4.30%.
That's not an inflation-adjusted decrease. That's an actual nominal decrease. Over the same ten-year period, cumulative CPI increased approximately 35.83%.
So let's put the ledger beside itself for a moment:
Enrollment: DOWN 39.32%
Revenue per pupil: UP 71.00%
Business & Administration per pupil: UP 104.39%
Average teacher salary: DOWN 4.30%
Interesting.
Now, there is an important reason I use per-pupil numbers carefully. When a district loses nearly 40% of its students, dividing expenditures among fewer pupils can make per-pupil increases look rather dramatic. So I checked the underlying totals too.
And that's where this gets a little more interesting.
Over the decade, Manchester's total Instruction spending declined approximately 7.2%. Meanwhile, total Business & Administration spending increased approximately 24%. Despite serving roughly 441 fewer students.
So I'm not writing a conclusion in the ledger today.
I'm writing a question:
How does a district lose nearly 40% of its students, increase total Business & Administration spending by roughly 24%, and end the decade with a LOWER average teacher salary than where it started?
Perhaps there is a perfectly reasonable explanation.
That's why Lady Budgetdown asks before she declares. 🪶
And this one has earned itself a Step Two.
Next I'll open the staffing ledger and see what happened to teachers, administrators and support staffing over the same ten years.
The numbers can take it from there.
Source: Michigan Department of Education Bulletin 1014, FY2014-15 and FY2024-25
Inflation comparison: CPI-U cumulative increase, 2015-2025: 35.831185%
The source document is the receipt.
With receipts and respect. 🪶
#LadyBudgetdown #ManchesterCommunitySchools #FollowTheMoney #SchoolFinance #PublicEducation #FiscalAccountability #WithReceiptsAndRespect