Dearest reader,
Back into the Merrill ledger we go.
This time, we're looking at where the 2024–25 General Fund dollars went.
Total General Fund expenditures:
💰 $7,790,502
And the largest piece of the pie went exactly where I would hope to see it.
🍎 Instructional expenditures:
$4,642,715 — 59.59%
Nearly 60 cents of every General Fund dollar went to instruction.
But the spectacles don't stop there. 👓
🏛� General administration:
$318,695 — 4.09%
🏫 School administration:
$464,277 — 5.96%
🔧 Operations & maintenance:
$887,979 — 11.40%
🚌 Transportation:
$352,114 — 4.52%
📚 Instructional staff support:
$248,377 — 3.19%
👧 Pupil support services:
$121,830 — 1.56%
Then I turned to the personnel side of the ledger.
Merrill reported:
💵 Salaries: $3,289,232
🏥 Employee insurance: $646,695
📋 FICA/retirement/unemployment/workers' comp: $1,638,378
🧾 Other personnel expenditures: $95,908
Altogether:
$5,670,213 — 72.78% of General Fund expenditures — went to personnel costs.
And then my quill landed on another line.
👀 Purchased services.
Professional and technical purchased services totaled $592,816.
Other purchased services added another $635,089.
Combined:
$1,227,905.
That's roughly 15.8% of the entire General Fund expenditure ledger.
Now, does that tell us those purchased services were unnecessary?
No.
A ledger tells us where to look, not what conclusion we're required to reach.
And the state's own report gives us an important reminder: districts can outsource functions that another district might perform using its own employees. When that happens, those costs appear under purchased services instead of salary and benefits.
So the spectacles stay on.
Merrill lost 32.54% of its pupils over the decade, and we've already seen some interesting changes in staffing and administration.
Now we know how nearly $7.8 million moved through the General Fund in 2024–25.
Next comes the fun part:
following some of those dollars. 🪶
Because, dearest reader...
Small districts can have very different ledgers.
With receipts and respect.
#LadyBudgetdown #MerrillCommunitySchools #SaginawCounty #MichiganSchools #SchoolFinance #BudgetTransparency #PublicEducation #FollowTheMoney #FollowTheReceipts #NumbersTellAStoryToo #WithReceiptsAndRespect