DEAREST READER...
Remember when Lady Budgetdown said we were going to start looking at The Business of Public Education?
Well, the first set of worker bees has officially been dispatched. 🐝🧾
We're starting with Munetrix.
If you've spent any time wandering through Michigan school transparency pages, you've probably seen the name. I certainly have.
But here's what I hadn't stopped to consider until yesterday:
Munetrix isn't simply a website where some districts post financial documents.
It is a private company operating within a much larger public-sector data ecosystem. Its products are used for financial analytics, transparency reporting, academic and student-data analysis, budgeting, benchmarking and more.
And schools aren't its only public-sector customers.
Municipalities, counties and other governmental entities use its products as well.
Then came the part that made Lady Budgetdown's spectacles move slightly.
Munetrix received private-equity investment in 2021.
Since then came acquisitions, a merger, expanded products and a much larger footprint, including a 2023 announcement that Munetrix and the company it acquired were serving 65% of Michigan's local education agencies.
Now THAT raised a very simple Lady Budgetdown question:
How much public money is actually flowing to this company?
So we're going to find out.
I've started a systematic search of Michigan school-district check registers for the last two completed fiscal years.
Not estimates.
Not extrapolations.
Not "probably."
Actual payments.
District by district.
Check register by check register.
Receipt by receipt.
And when we're finished, whatever number we can actually document is the number I'll publish.
Maybe it's surprisingly small.
Maybe it isn't.
I genuinely don't know.
And that's rather the point.
The Business of Public Education isn't about deciding the answer and then looking for evidence.
It's about following the public money and seeing where it actually goes.
The worker bees are officially loose. 🐝
With receipts and respect,
Lady Budgetdown
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