Dearest reader,
I received a message today from a sitting Board of Education trustee regarding one of my recent posts. There was useful information in it. Information I genuinely did not know.
I appreciate that.
But there was also this:
"...presenting this is an attempt to be intentionally inflammatory..."
And it reminded me of another conversation I've had with a different Board of Education trustee, who told me that I should be calling superintendents and speaking with them before publishing numbers so I could provide the proper context.
I also see versions of the same criticism regularly in the comments here.
"Where is the context?"
So perhaps it is time we talk about what I actually do here.
I find a number.
I verify the number.
I find the underlying public record.
I explain what the record says.
And when the receipts do not establish why something happened, I do something that occasionally seems to drive people absolutely mad:
I ask the question.
That is intentional.
If enrollment declined 19% while another staffing category increased 78%, I can document that.
What I cannot automatically document is every policy decision, reporting change, staffing model, contractual provision, local circumstance, legislative change, accounting decision, or operational explanation that may have contributed to it over nearly two decades.
Nor am I going to invent one.
And no, I am not going to call every superintendent before I publish a public record.
A superintendent may have valuable context. So might a teacher. A board member. A union representative. A business manager. A paraprofessional. A parent. A former employee. Or the person who actually filed the state report.
Calling one person does not magically produce "the context."
It produces their context.
And I am happy to hear it.
That is precisely why the sentence ends with a question mark.
If you have context, bring it.
If a reporting classification changed, show me.
If an accounting rule explains something, show me.
If a collective bargaining agreement matters, bring the contract.
If legislation changed the numbers, bring the statute.
If a superintendent has an explanation, they are welcome to bring that too.
If I missed a receipt, put it on the table.
I have corrected my own work publicly before, and I will do it again.
But "you didn't include my explanation" is not the same thing as "your number is wrong."
And providing a documented public number without first collecting every possible explanation for it is not inherently inflammatory.
Sometimes the entire purpose of publishing the number is to ask people who know more than I do to help explain it.
There are school board members here.
Teachers.
Administrators.
Accountants.
Parents.
Union representatives.
Former employees.
Taxpayers.
People who have spent decades inside these systems.
I would be rather foolish to pretend I know everything they know.
So when I ask:
"Where did the administrative dollars go?"
I am not hiding the answer.
I am telling you I don't have it.
That's the point.
The question is an invitation.
Bring context.
Bring disagreement.
Bring another interpretation.
Most importantly, bring the receipt.
Because the ledger has plenty of room for context.
What it does not have room for is the idea that a public number should remain unpublished until I have interviewed the people responsible for explaining it.
The receipts are public.
So are the questions.
And if we already knew all the answers, dearest reader, there wouldn't be much point in asking them.
With receipts and respect.
— Lady Budgetdown
#LadyBudgetdown #WithReceiptsAndRespect #TheLedger #MichiganSchools #PublicEducation #SchoolFinance #Transparency #PublicRecords #FollowTheReceipts