HEMLOCK PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT: NOW LET’S FOLLOW THE MONEY

[Shadowninja]

HEMLOCK PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT: NOW LET'S FOLLOW THE MONEY

Dear readers, we have looked at ten years of Hemlock's finances.

We have looked at ten years of staffing.

Now Lady Budgetdown would like to open the 2024-25 General Fund and see where the dollars actually went. 🧐📜

And as always, we are going to let Hemlock's own reported numbers do the talking.

💰 Total General Fund expenditures: approximately $17.076 million.

Of that:

👥 Personnel expenditures: $11,787,866 — 69.03%

That includes:

• Salaries: $6,917,642
• Employee insurance benefits: $1,437,916
• FICA, retirement, unemployment & workers' compensation: $3,331,124
• Other personnel expenditures: $101,184

In other words, roughly 69 cents of every General Fund dollar was tied to personnel costs.

But Lady Budgetdown also wanted to know what functions those dollars supported.

And that ledger tells another part of the story.

🍎 Instruction: $9,095,470 — 53.26%

🏛� General Administration: $680,294 — 3.98%

🏫 School Administration: $972,760 — 5.70%

💼 Business Services: $372,561 — 2.18%

🔧 Operations & Maintenance: $2,072,731 — 12.14%

🚌 Transportation: $612,447 — 3.59%

📚 Pupil Support Services: $687,490 — 4.03%

Taken together, General Administration + School Administration + Business Services totaled $2,025,615 — approximately 11.86% of the entire General Fund.

And this is where our previous receipts become useful.

Our ten-year comparison showed Business & Administration spending per pupil increased 78.38%, while Operations & Maintenance spending per pupil increased 80.24%.

Both grew substantially faster than inflation.

Our staffing comparison showed pupil enrollment increased only 3.45%, while administrator FTE increased 24.88% and non-instructional/support FTE increased 40.23%.

And now the 2024-25 expenditure report gives us a snapshot of where the district's General Fund dollars are landing today.

Does any single one of these numbers prove that Hemlock is spending too much — or too little — in a particular area?

No.

And Lady Budgetdown isn't going to pretend that it does.

But when you place the financial trend, staffing trend, and current spending breakdown side by side, you begin to see something far more useful than an isolated number:

You see the structure of the district's spending.

That is the purpose of this exercise.

Not outrage.

Not assumptions.

Not deciding the conclusion before opening the ledger.

Just putting the receipts next to one another and asking taxpayers to look at the whole picture.

Because sometimes the most interesting thing about a budget isn't simply how much money was spent.

It is where the money went — and how that has changed over time. 👀

📜 Source: Michigan Department of Education, Budget Transparency Reports, Hemlock Public School District, Fiscal Year 2024-25, General Fund (11).

👑 Receipts aren't very useful if we only keep the convenient ones.

With receipts and respect.

#LadyBudgetdown #HemlockPublicSchools #SchoolFinance #BudgetTransparency #FollowTheMoney #EducationTransparency #WithReceiptsAndRespect