Dearest Reader,
We have arrived at Step Five of our Grand Haven rabbit hole, and today's ledger concerns itself with the General Fund and its newer companion, the sinking fund.
First, the General Fund.
Grand Haven closed out 2024–25 with approximately $9.4 million in General Fund reserves. The district's own budgets project that sum falling to $6.84 million by 2025–26, and further still to $6.55 million by 2026–27.
A projected decline, Dear Reader, of approximately 30.3 percent, in just two years' time.
Now, fairness compels this Author to offer some context, for Lady Budgetdown is nothing if not scrupulous. This is not, on its face, a tale of spending run amok. The district is, in fact, reducing its overall expenditures for 2026–27 as enrollment continues its decline.
But revenue, alas, is declining as well.
And so, even with those reductions duly made, the district projects yet another deficit, and yet another draw upon its dwindling reserves.
Then, Dear Reader, we come to the sinking fund.
For 2025–26, the district budgeted $1.41 million for construction and improvements, with an estimated $904,000 remaining thereafter. For 2026–27, it anticipates another $2.4 million in local sinking-fund revenue, against $2.22 million in planned construction and improvement spending, leaving a projected balance of approximately $1.084 million.
And here, Dear Reader, this Author must pause and raise a single, well-manicured eyebrow. 👀
The budget informs us how much has been appropriated toward "Construction & Improvement", but offers no project-by-project accounting of where that sum actually goes. More detailed sinking-fund records do apparently exist elsewhere upon the district's own website. And yet the very link meant to lead a curious taxpayer from the transparency page to that information currently delivers them to nothing more than a "Page Not Found."
Let it be clear: this Author has found nothing within these documents to suggest impropriety regarding the sinking fund itself.
But taxpayers attempting to follow millions of dollars in voter-approved sinking-fund spending ought not be made to play hide-and-seek with their own receipts.
Five steps in, Dear Reader, and Grand Haven has certainly given us no shortage to consider.
With receipts and respect. 👑
Lady Budgetdown
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