MANCHESTER COMMUNITY SCHOOLS: 2024-25 GENERAL FUND

[Shadowninja]

📜 MANCHESTER COMMUNITY SCHOOLS: STEP FOUR

Dear readers, the Manchester ledger remains open just a little longer. 🪶

Step One showed Business & Administration spending per pupil increasing 104.39% over ten years. Step Two showed something rather important:

Administrative staffing did NOT increase.

In fact, school administrator FTE fell 64.5%, while school administrative-support FTE fell 44.3%.

So for Step Four, I opened Manchester's 2024-25 operating and personnel expenditure reports.

Here's what the General Fund shows:

💰 Total General Fund expenditures: $11.81 million

📚 Instruction: $6.55 million — 55.44%

🏛� General Administration: $357,555

🏫 School Administration: $653,253

💼 Business Services: $269,027

Combined, those three administrative/business functions totaled approximately $1.28 million. Meanwhile, personnel accounted for approximately 73.93% of General Fund spending.

One other number caught my eye:

Purchased services totaled approximately $1.45 million between Professional & Technical Purchased Services and Other Purchased Services.

Does that explain the administrative spending trend? Not necessarily. These reports do not tell me which functions those purchased-service dollars belong to, so I won't pretend they do.

But the original question remains:

If Manchester substantially reduced administrative staffing, where did the Business & Administration dollars go?

I think that earns the ledger one final, quick look through the district's audits and budgets.

Then we'll see whether the receipts answer the question, or whether it's time to close the book. 🪶

Sources: Manchester Community Schools 2024-25 Budget Transparency Personnel Expenditure Report and Operating Expenditure Report
With receipts and respect.

#LadyBudgetdown #ManchesterCommunitySchools #SchoolFinance #FollowTheMoney #FiscalAccountability #PublicRecords