Dearest reader,
Lady Budgetdown woke up this morning with every intention of simply answering some messages.
That was adorable. 😂
Because somewhere between answering a reader, asking myself one innocent little question, and trying to explain what I stumbled across last night, another rabbit hole opened.
One question became another.
Then another.
Then I started trying to figure out how to explain the enormous private ecosystem that exists around our PUBLIC school districts without requiring everyone to obtain a finance degree and a very large cup of coffee.
So I started drawing it.
Then rearranging it.
Then simplifying it.
Then rearranging it again.
And somewhere along the way, I realized something:
THIS is probably the best place to start.
Before Lady Budgetdown starts putting actual company names, contracts, ownership structures and dollar amounts into these boxes, perhaps everyone should first see the system itself.
Taxpayers.
State funding.
Federal funding.
Then the school district.
And surrounding that district is an entire ecosystem most taxpayers rarely see assembled in one place:
Law firms. Financial advisers. Bond underwriters. Auditors. Architects. Engineers. Construction managers. Contractors. Software companies. Data companies. Technology providers.
None of their existence automatically means anything improper.
But they are part of the public-education money trail.
And if we're going to follow that trail, we should probably understand the map first.
So apparently Lady Budgetdown woke up intending to answer Facebook messages and accidentally made a diagram of the business ecosystem surrounding public education.
This, dearest reader, is how the rabbit holes happen.
And why I am perpetually behind.
The boxes are empty for now.
Soon, we start filling them with receipts.
With receipts and respect,
Lady Budgetdown
#LadyBudgetdown #WithReceiptsAndRespect #TheLedger #MichiganSchools #PublicEducation #SchoolFinance #Transparency #FollowTheMoney #PublicMoney #MichiganEducation