Dearest reader,

We have followed the St. Johns Public Schools ledger through enrollment, spending, and staffing.

Now we arrive at Step 3: Compensation. 🧐📜

St. Johns' 2025 Calendar Year disclosure identifies 9 employees with Medicare wages over $100,000.

Their combined total compensation?

$1,818,344.48.

Now, an important distinction before the pearls start rattling:

That does NOT mean nine employees received $1.8 million in salary.

The district's "total compensation" figure combines Medicare wages, insurance premiums, and mandatory employer-paid benefits such as FICA/Medicare, retirement contributions, and workers' compensation.

So let us look at four administrative positions in the report:

👑 Superintendent
Medicare wages: $179,503.38
Total compensation: $304,834.23

📜 Assistant Superintendent
Medicare wages: $128,591.47
Total compensation: $223,355.61

💰 Director of Finance
Medicare wages: $130,664.41
Total compensation: $219,371.74

🏛� Operations Director
Medicare wages: $113,079.54
Total compensation: $193,933.46

Those four positions alone represent $941,495.04 in total compensation.

And this is where our previous St. Johns receipts provide some useful context.

Over the decade we examined:

Pupil count declined 19.85%.

Teachers declined 8.3%.

School-level administrators declined 18.9%.

But district-level administrative FTE increased 75%, from 4.00 to 7.00.

And in Step 1, Business & Administration spending per pupil increased 67.60% after inflation.

Now Step 3 gives us a look at the compensation attached to some of the people occupying that administrative structure.

Does compensation alone tell us whether someone is overpaid?

No.

Does a job title tell us whether a position is necessary?

No.

And Lady Budgetdown isn't going to pretend otherwise.

But when enrollment, staffing, spending, and compensation are placed beside one another, taxpayers get something much more useful than a single number taken out of context:

They get the ledger.

Nine employees.
More than $1.8 million in combined total compensation.
And four administrative positions accounting for approximately $941,500 of it.

The receipts are not the conclusion.

They're where the questions begin. 🧐

With receipts and respect. 💙📜

#LadyBudgetdown #StJohnsPublicSchools #StJohnsMichigan #ClintonCounty #MichiganSchools #SchoolFinance #SchoolAdministration #PublicEducation #EducationTransparency #EmployeeCompensation #TaxpayerDollars #FollowTheReceipts #TheLedger #WithReceiptsAndRespect