Dearest reader,

We have reached the final page of the Cheboygan Area Schools ledger. 🪶

And Step Five is where Lady B asks a slightly different question:

How healthy is the General Fund?

For 2024–25, Cheboygan reported:

🪶 General Fund revenue: $22.14 million

🪶 General Fund expenditures: $22.60 million

🪶 Net change: −$476,629

🪶 Ending General Fund balance: $8.52 million

That ending fund balance represented 37.66% of General Fund expenditures.

So no, dearest reader, Lady B is not sounding the financial-emergency bell.

An $8.52 million General Fund balance is substantial.

But then we turn the page. 👀

The district's 2025–26 final budget projects:

−$673,222 deficit

with an ending fund balance of:

$7,842,481

And the 2026–27 proposed budget projects another:
−$44,364 deficit

leaving an ending fund balance of:

$7,798,117

Put the periods together and the direction becomes easier to see:

2023–24: $8.99 million

2024–25: $8.52 million

2025–26: $7.84 million

2026–27: $7.80 million

That is a decline of approximately $1.19 million from the 2023–24 actual balance to the 2026–27 proposed ending balance.
But context matters here, too.

The 2025 audit received an unmodified opinion, with no material weaknesses reported and no reportable noncompliance under Government Auditing Standards.

So what does the final page of Cheboygan's ledger tell us?

This is not a story of an empty bank account.

It is a story of a district with a substantial General Fund balance that, according to its own budgets, is trending downward across the periods shown.

And that is precisely why Lady B doesn't look at one deficit, one surplus, or one fund-balance number and declare victory or disaster.

The direction matters.

The context matters.

And the receipts matter. 🪶

That closes the Cheboygan ledger.

For now. 👀

With receipts and respect.

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