K-12 District Finance

The financial data files contain data commonly reported for MI school districts including expenditure, revenue, and balance data. Data are sourced from the State of Michigan’s Financial Information Database (FID). Data from the 2004-2022 school years are available. Future year's school year data will be added on.

K-12 Finance Balance

Record Level: District by year by fund by account (Major Class) 
Record Count: 34,000-42,000 fund/account records per year 
Years Covered: 2004-2022 
Population Coverage: District balances at the level of individual funds and accounts 

The district finance balance dataset contains information on the balances in specific district allocation accounts. Each allocation observation is unique within district and year on one of Fund, Suffix, or Major Class, although each Fund, Suffix, and Major Class are seen multiple times within a district and year. Working with the file will generally require some collapse of the file. The INDICATOR variable separates allocations into Balances, Liabilities, and Assets. The AMOUNT variable lists the monetary value associated with the given allocation. 

We have data for between 31,000 and 41,000 balances per year for the range of the dataset, rising slowly over time. We have a total of over 678,000 total balance records.

K-12 Finance Expenditures

Record Level: District by year by object code by expenditure function by fund. From 2017 onward also by by building. 
Record Count: 180,000-688,000 fund/account records per year 
Years Covered: 2004-2022 
Population Coverage: K12 District expenditures 

The district finance expenditures dataset has information describing district spending and what specific district allocation account or grant its coming from. The district expenditure dataset includes BUILDING_CODE and BUILDING_NAME information from 2017 onward, allowing researchers to track expenditures from 4125 buildings. However only roughly two thirds of the over 2.8 million expenditures in these years has building information, with the other third being only at the district level. 

The three digit object code (with a fourth digit "0" added on) is split out into three variables for researcher ease in grouping AMOUNT values they are interested in. These three variables are the HEADER_OBJECT_CODE, SUBHEADER_OBJECT_CODE, and OBJECT_CODE. For example, if the object code is 1870, the HEADER_OBJECT_CODE will be "1000" and the associated HEADER_OBJECT_DESC will indicate "Salaries". The SUBHEADER_OBJECT_CODE is 1800 and SUBHEADER_OBJECT_DESC will indicate "Salary, Temporary". The OBJECT_CODE will be 1870 and the OBJECT_CODE_DESC will indicate "Salary, Temporary, Teaching". 

We have data for over 5.5 million different expenditures. From 2004 to 2016 there are between 180,000 and 242,000 expenditures. Starting in 2017 the numbers rise, at over 366,000 in 2017 and as high as 688,000 in 2022.

K-12 Finance Revenue

Record Level: District by year by fund by suffix code by account (Major Class) 
Record Count: 28,000-32,000 fund/account records per year 
Years Covered: 2004-2022 
Population Coverage: District revenues at the level of individual funds, functions, and accounts 

The district finance revenue dataset holds information on sources of income for districts with specific amounts and descriptive categories they fall under. The revenue data is structured similarly to the balance data, with observations split into fund, function, and major class data. We have data for between 28,000 and 32,000 revenue records per year, with a total of 569,502 records total.