Overview

The School-Level Expenditure Report breaks down expenditures of federal, state and local funds for districts – local educational agencies and public school academies (charter schools) – in the state for each fiscal year. This report publishes expenditures at the school level, while other expenditure reports on MI School Data publish data at the district level.

This report uses financial data submitted by districts in the Financial Information Database.

The report was developed as a requirement of the federal Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015. The first year of data available in the report is 2018-2019.

There will be scenarios and issues specific to individual districts and schools that may affect comparability within and between districts. For example, expenditures made by intermediate school districts (ISDs) serving students at the district level will not appear on the district’s School-Level Expenditure Report. It is important to consider the limitations of analyzing this data on its own, given the examples noted above, along with other variances that may occur, including, but not limited to, teacher seniority, ISD support, and student need. Please direct any questions or concerns to the appropriate school or district contacts.

Using the Report

Use the Expenditure Report button to access menus to select a school year, district and school. Users can also search by name in the District and School menus. Use the Reset button to clear the selections and start over.

• The Per-Pupil Expenditures table displays data for a district and schools.
  • The Change Layout button provides another view of the same table and includes links to the Parent Dashboard and School Index reports on MI School Data.
• The District-Level Exclusions table displays expenditures that are excluded from the Per-Pupil Expenditures table.
  • These columns show a breakdown of expenditures that were excluded from the Per-Pupil Expenditures table.
  • The Exclusions Help button provides an explanation of what expenditures are excluded and why. Definitions are also in the About the Data section of About this Report.

Use the Comparison Options button to access two comparison options: District Compare and Location Compare. Users select a school year and multiple locations. Users can also search by name in the menus. Use the Reset button to clear the selections and start over.

District Compare data viewing options include:

• Selecting multiple districts and/or multiple schools in the menus.
• Comparing selected locations by either Enrollment or Total Expenditures Per-Pupil.
• Color-coded bar graphs provide data for the chosen comparison options.

Location Compare data viewing options include:

• Selecting multiple schools, districts, ISDs, cities or counties.
• Comparing selected locations by either Enrollment or Total Expenditures Per-Pupil.
• Map with color-coded circles represents the data and locations chosen; hovering over each circle provides information.
• When navigating away from the map, selections will be reset unlike other parts of the report which hold the user’s settings.

Location and Comparison Options

These options can be customized on the Expenditure Report screen and the Comparison Options screen.

Locations Setting options:

• Expenditure Report screen: statewide, district and school
• Comparison Options screen when the District Compare button is selected: district and school
• Compare Options screen when Location Compare is selected: school, district, ISD, city and county

Use the check boxes to compare your selected location with data for other locations within Michigan.

The Center for Educational Performance and Information collects financial data via the Financial Information Database application, and pupil data from the Michigan Student Data System. For more information on the FID application and reporting rules, please see the Financial Information Database page on the CEPI website.

Report Labels

Districtwide Expenditures: Any remaining expenditures reported without a valid building code are allocated among all students in a district, resulting in Districtwide Expenditures being equal across all buildings on a per-pupil basis.

Districtwide Expenditures Per-Pupil: The amount of expenditures spent per-pupil not designated to a specific school but allocated across all the schools in the district on an equal, per-pupil basis.

Enrollment: FTE reported as of the fall pupil count day. Part-time students are counted based on the proportion of their enrollment. Refer to the Data Calculations section below for further explanation of audited fall FTE calculations.

Federal Expenditures Per-Pupil: The amount of federal funds spent per pupil in a school.

Federal and State/Local Disaggregation: ESSA requires that each section includes a disaggregation by expenditures of federal funds and state/local (nonfederal) funds. The grant code dimension will be used to disaggregate federal grant codes 400-899. It will also be used to disaggregate state/local expenditures that are remaining in each section (less “Exclusions”).

Site-Level Expenditures Per-Pupil: The amount of expenditures per-pupil designated by a school district spent in a specific school. At a minimum, this will include basic instructions, added needs instruction, and school administration. It may also include certain pupil support services, instructional staff support services, and other expenditures as determined by the school district to be site-level expenditures.

State/Local Expenditures Per-Pupil: The amount of state and local funds spent per pupil in a school.

Data Calculations

A statewide calculation methodology and standard display of these school-level per-pupil expenditures is used to maximize usability and comparability of this data; a full explanation of this can be found in Michigan Department of Education document: ESSA School-Level Financial Reporting. 

The per-pupil expenditure calculation is based on fall full time equivalency, including adjustments made by the district and ISD auditors. Districts may submit changes to their fall FTE for approval within the audit narrative window. The per-pupil expenditure figures also exclude certain expenditures, called exclusions, from the calculation. Exclusions are shown in the table below the per-pupil expenditure table and are calculated at the district level only. Per-pupil expenditures are not to be confused with per-student expenditures, which can be found in other expenditure reports on MI School Data. These do not have exclusions and the fall FTE are from the district audit and do not include enrollment changes from an approved audit narrative. Financial statements of Michigan school districts are prepared in conformity with U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles for government units. These standards, which are accounting rules used to prepare, present, and report financial statements, are established by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board.

Excluded Expenditures are amounts that are not included in the per-pupil expenditure calculation for the purpose of this report and are displayed as a single, district-level amount: Fund codes 8x, Function Codes 13x, 3xx, 41x, 42x, 43x, 44x, 49x, 5xx, 6xx. Preschool instruction expenditures (Function 118) are displayed as a separate exclusion, as no enrollment data is available for this category of expenditures. Nonpublic Expenditures are expenditures reported with building codes that belong to a nonpublic school or another school district; these are also displayed as separate exclusions. Please see MDE document: ESSA School-Level Financial Reporting for a full explanation of exclusions.

The Michigan Public School Accounting Manual serves as the guide to uniform classification and recording of accounting transactions for public school districts. For a better understanding of the classifications, categories and definitions used by districts and found in this report, refer to the manual at theMichigan Department of Education'swebsite, specifically the Appendix - Definitions of Account Codes.

The Financial Information Database requires 100% of expenditures in functions 11x, 12x, and 24x (excluding object codes 6xxx and 82xxx within those functions) to be reported with a valid building code. Expenditure amounts in other function codes reported with a valid building code will also be included in the Site-Level Expenditures Per-Pupil section. This is encouraged to minimize the amount of district-level expenditures being allocated across all buildings. Site-Level Amounts are per-pupil and are divide by the enrollment figure in the table for each building.

For more information on the FID application and reporting rules, please see the Financial Information Database page.

Some definitions and calculation information is taken from MDE document: ESSA School-Level Financial Reporting updated Jan. 28, 2020.

For questions specific to one school, please contact the school directly. Specific contact information for each school is available on the Parent Dashboard.

If you have technical questions not addressed here or in the linked resources, please contact CEPI customer support at cepi@michigan.gov.