The Financial Expenditures report provides detailed breakdowns of a school's financial outlays for a given school year.

These data provide important insights as to how districts spend their funds each school year. This report can be used to view, analyze, and compare expenditure data across districts, school years, and the state, either at a general level (e.g., What were the overall expenditures in my district last year?) or at a detailed level (e.g., Did my district spend more per pupil on salaries compared to other districts in the state over the last five years?).

Finances can be complex, so use caution about forming conclusions. For example, District A might outsource its transportation services while District B might use its own staff. A first look might lead you to believe the two districts have vastly different transportation expenses, but in reality District A's costs for this function would appear under the purchased service category, while District B's costs would be under employee salaries and benefits..

There are four different expenditure reports, and understanding a few basic accounting terms will help you choose the ones that will best answer your questions. A fund represents an account which is designated to pay for a given expenditure. A function represents the purpose of an expenditure. An object is the item purchased. The four reports are as follows:.

• The Funds by Function report is useful in discovering overall expenditures for general uses. Here you can find, for instance, the total that was spent on instruction in a particular district's elementary school in a given school year, or you could find the expenditures per pupil for a district's school lunch fund.
• The Function by Object report goes into greater detail than the Funds by Function report. Instead of just overall expenditures, you can see detailed expenditures such as an elementary school's associated professional salaries or insurance benefits, among others. This report displays objects as a subset of corresponding functions.
• The Object by Function report is the inverse of the Function by Object report; the difference is that while Function by Object drills down from general to detailed, Object by Function allows the user to select functions as a subset of an object
• The Budget Transparency report is a user-friendly report that provides a simplified view of personnel and operations expenditures so you can easily compare the proportion of expenditures in each area.

Last updated 3/2016

Exploring the Financial Expenditures reports can answer questions such as:

What percentage of the general fund from my local district is spent on non-instructional support?

Select Function by Object. Select your district under Edit Report/Find Location. Under Report Settings, choose a school year; select Fund Type - General Fund; Function Type - Non-Instructional Support; Object - Professional Salaries; Object Detail - All Details. Click View Results. When your report appears, select Percentage of Selected Fund in the view bar at the top. 

How much money did my district spend on special education instruction last year?

Select Function by Object. Select your district under Edit Report/Find Location. Under Report Settings, choose a school year; Fund Type - Special Education Fund; Function Type - Instruction; Object - All Objects. When your report appears, select Sum Total in the view bar at the top. The report will display all Special Education Instructional expenditures broken down by object.

How much money did my district spend per pupil on vocational education professional salaries last year?

Select Object by Function. Select your district under Find Location. Under Report Settings, choose a school year; select Fund Type - Vocational Education Fund; Object - Professional Salaries; Function Type - All Functions (Area of Activity). When your report appears, select Per Pupil in the view bar at the top. The report will display all Special Education Instructional expenditures broken down by object.

How does my school district's expenditures compare to a neighboring district's expenditures?

Under Edit Report/Find Location, select your school district and then select the Add Comparison blue button to add a comparison district to your report. 

What percentage of my district's Personnel Expenditures were spent on FICA/Retirement/Unemployment/Workers Comp last year?

Select Budget Transparency. Select your district under Find Location. Under Report Settings, choose a school year, Fund Type - General Fund and View Results. When the report appears, at the top of the page, choose Personnel. The resulting pie chart displays the expenditures; the table below provides details.

How does my district's total per pupil expenditures compare to the statewide per pupil expenditures?

Select Funds by Function. Select your district under Find Location. Click the blue Add Comparison button. Select ISD - All ISDs in State; District - All Districts in State (or use the blue Reset to Statewide button). Under Report Settings, choose the school year; Fund Type - General Fund; Function Type - All Functions (Area of Activity). When results appear, choose Per Student view at the top.

The Financial Expenditures report.

Financial statements of school districts in Michigan are prepared in conformity with U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) 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 (GASB).

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 the Department of Education's website. Its Appendix - Definitions of Account Codes is a useful reference.

Report Labels

Location/Entity: You can select and compare data at different entity levels: statewide, by intermediate school district (ISD) or by school district. A public school academy, or charter school, is considered a school district.

School Year: A school fiscal year runs July 1 through June 30.

Fund: The definition of a fund is "an independent fiscal and accounting entity, preferably with a self-balancing set of accounts, with its own assets, liabilities, resources and fund balances which are segregated for the purpose of carrying on specific activities in accordance with special regulations, restrictions, or limitations. Think of the fund as the source and use of the expenditure. While there are a number of different fund types, the General Fund is the chief operating fund of a school district."

Function: The activity for which a service or material is acquired within the fund. One common function area is instruction. Combining with the fund, you can see the amount of instructional expenditures spent in the General Fund.

Object: A more detailed slice of the function, object is the service or commodity obtained as the result of a specific expenditure. For instance, the object can tell you the proportion of instructional expenses spent on salaries or benefits. The broad object code categories include salaries, benefits, purchased services, supplies/materials and capital outlay.

Per Student: The sum of the chosen expenditures divided by the total number of students in the chosen entity.

Percent of Selected Fund: This column shows the breakout of Fund Type, Function Type, Object Detail, or Secondary Object Detail by percent of the Fund Type selected in the Report Settings. 

Instructional Expenditures: The cost of activities dealing directly with the teaching of students in the classroom or in a classroom situation. 

Pupil Support Services: Activities that are designed to assess and improve the well-being of pupils and to supplement the teaching process. Examples are guidance services, health services, psychological and social work services.

Instructional Staff Support Services: Activities associated with assisting the instructional staff with the content and process of providing learning experiences for pupils.

General Administration: Activities concerned with establishing policy, operating schools and the school system, and providing the essential facilities and services for the staff and pupils.

School Administration: Activities concerned with overall administrative responsibility for a single school.

Operations and Maintenance: Activities concerned with keeping the physical plant open, comfortable and safe for use.

Transportation: Activities concerned with the conveyance of pupils to and from school, as provided by state law. 

Central and Other Support Services: Activities other than general administration that support each of the other instructional and supporting service programs or activities of any supporting service or classification of services, general in nature, which cannot be classified in the preceding service areas.

Community Services: Activities that are not directly related to providing education for pupils in a school system. These include services provided by the school system for the community as a whole or some segment of the community, such as community recreation programs, civic activities, public libraries, programs of custody and care of children, and community welfare activities.

Facilities Acquisitions: Activities concerned with acquiring land and buildings, remodeling buildings, constructing buildings and additions to buildings, initially installing or extending service systems and other built-in equipment and improving sites.

Debt Service: Activities related to servicing the long-term debt of the school district, including payments of both principal and interest. This function includes bond interest payments, retirement of bonded debt, capital lease payments and other long-term notes.

Other Transactions: Outgoing transfers are amounts disbursed or to be disbursed to other school districts which do not create assets to be received in the future. Includes Prior Period Adjustments which are expenses applicable to a previous period.

Salaries: Amounts paid to employees, whether in permanent or temporary positions, including personnel substituting for those in permanent positions. 

Employee Insurance Benefits: Employee insurance including group life, health, dental, vision, etc.

FICA/Retirement/Unemployment/Workers Comp: Payroll benefits including social security, workers' and unemployment compensation, and retirement contributions.

Other Personnel Expenditures: Benefits other than insurance and mandatory coverage. Includes special leave payments, allowances, reimbursement for health-related services, professional services paid on behalf of employees, etc.

Professional and Technical Purchased Services: Non-payroll services to persons with specialized skills and knowledge, such as architects, engineers, auditors, dentists, medical doctors, lawyers, etc.

Client/Pupil Transportation Purchased Services: Payments to persons or agencies for the purpose of transporting children to school. 

Other Purchased Services: Services rendered by persons who are not on the payroll of the school system.

Supplies and Materials: Items that are consumed, worn out or deteriorated in use.

Capital Outlay: The acquisition of fixed assets or additions to fixed assets. This includes land or existing buildings, improvements of grounds, construction of buildings, additions to buildings, remodeling of buildings, initial equipment, additional equipment and replacement of equipment.

Other Expenditures: Amounts paid for goods and services not otherwise classified, such as the retirement of debt, payment of interest on debt, payments to a housing authority, and payment of dues and fees.

Fund Modifications: Transactions conveying money from one fund to another. Generally, this takes the form of payments from the General Fund to some other fund. They are not recorded as expenditures.

Other Transactions: Payments to other public school districts outside of Michigan, sub-grantee disbursements and other transactions which cannot be identified above. This is also used to record transactions that affect financial operations of a prior year so as to decrease fund equity.

Data Collection

The Center for Educational Performance and Information (CEPI) collected the data used to compile this report. The database used is CEPI's Financial Information Database (FID). Details about this data collection can be found on the FID Web page.

Last updated 11/2016