A2Politico: WISD Accounts for Hundreds of Millions in Public Funding Like Carefree Sailors on Shore Leave

by P.D. Lesko

In this digital age in which bills are received and payments are made electronically, a school district should be able to tell taxpayers in real time from where the money is coming and where it’s going. The Washtenaw Intermediate School District is providing information to taxpayers about its over $200 million in expenditures with the inexactitude of a sailor on shore leave with pockets stuffed with millions of dollars. The WISD’s “transparency” reports can only be described as almost completely lacking in transparency.

Budgets posted to the WISD website are barebones. Expenditure reports are out-of-date, inexact, deliberately obtuse and succeed in hiding how the WISD spends the funding it receives from local taxpayers, the state and the feds. Now, the WISD wants another $250 million over the next decade in the form of an additional millage to spend under the cover of faux financial “transparency.”

Between 2019 and 2024, WISD schools saw an overall five percent decline in enrollment (between 2003 and 2024, the County’s birthrate dropped by 23 percent), while the WISD’s budget increased significantly. In 2018-2019, the WISD total revenue was $184.7 million, and in 2025 the total revenue is expected to be $225 million, a 20 percent increase.

A $3,000 Threshold Leads to An Empty Travel Report

Want to know how much WISD employees and trustees are spending on travel? Good luck to you, Laddy Buck. The WISD “policy” is not to make public the cost of any travel that costs less than $3,000. From the WISD “Transparency” website: “As ISDs seek to provide leadership, programs and services to their constituents, staff seek out best practices, gain state and national educational perspectives, gather knowledge and skill levels that reflect the latest trends, innovations, and challenges. This requires more travel to conferences and trainings than you would typically experience in a K-12 school district. If any board member or administrator’s travel expenses had exceeded $3,000, in any of the designated areas, it would be shown below.”

And what about the WISD’s hundreds of non-administrative employees? What about their travel expenses?

Have a look at the WISD 2023-2024 Travel Report below (the most recent travel report on the WISD website) “No travel exceeding threshold”:

We can all sleep soundly, right? No WISD trustee or administrator’s travel “exceeded the threshold” in 2023-2024. Uh, and what about 2025?

In 2024 the WISD had 545 employees, and five trustees. The only people who think taxpayers don’t need to know how much money WISD employees spend on travel are the four elected (and one appointed) Blind Mice who oversee the WISD’s hundreds of millions in cheese: Mary Jane Tramontin, President, R. Steve Olsen, Vice President, Sarena Shivers, Treasurer, Dorcas Musili, Secretary, and Diane Hockett, Trustee.

Hockett, a retired teacher, was first elected WISD trustee when George W. Bush occupied the White House (2001). Her current term expires in 2031.

WISD Owns Three Old Fords, But How Many Employees Get Car Allowances?

If you think the “Travel Report” is an aberration, and I’m just being, well, how I can be about governmental transparency, have a look at the WISD’s 2023-2024 “Motor Vehicle” transparency report (the most recent motor vehicle report on the WISD’s website as of Oct. 22, 2025):

Yes, in 2023-2024 WISD owned three old Fords, kinda like the rest of us driving around in beaters. But tell us WISD, how many motor vehicles does the District lease each year? How many car allowances does the WISD pay out monthly? If one wanted to know that, one would have to submit a Freedom of Information Act request. The WISD’s FOIA policy was last updated in 2018. The FOIA Statute was updated by Public Act 14 of 2025.

These WISD “transparency” reports, served up by people with Ph.D.s, reek of the kind of half-truths and oily sneakiness one expects from a caught-red-handed middle schooler. The only difference is that the people telling these half-truths and providing risible “transparency” to the public have fully developed frontal cortexes. That part of the brain, which isn’t fully developed before age 25 (yes, sorry, 25) controls Executive Functions: Planning and organizing thoughts and actions, decision-making and problem-solving, impulse control and self-regulation, and working memory and attention. 

Middle schooler to sibling: “Bruh, should we each have a $3,000 threshold before we disclose (to our parents who are funding us) the amount we each spend on video games, apps, Door Dash and ridesharing? Yes, yes. Passes unanimously.”

WISD Superintendent, Deputy Superintendent, Assistant Superintendent, Business Services, Executive Director, Human Resources, Executive Director, Achievement Initiatives and 13 other administrators and Trustees: “Ladies and gentlemen: we should each have a $3,000 threshold per trip before we disclose (to the people funding us) how much we’re spending on hotels, rental cars, airplane tickets, Ubers, Uber Eats, and airport parking. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Passes unanimously. Very impactful leadership.”

The Unsortable, Outdated PDF File of a Check Register

The most recent WISD check register (2023-2024) is a PDF file with no information why WISD employees were reimbursed. The total amount of checks written in 2023-2024 came in at $26.4 million. Wondering what happened to the additional $170 million expended in 2023-2024 by the WISD? Good luck to you, Boyo. No purchasing or credit card records are posted to the WISD’s “transparency” page. They should be, with the name of every employee who made purchases, the amount and purpose of the purposes, for the past five years, and in Excel format.

The WISD’s reimbursement policy provides a tantalizing hint to the amounts in the check register: “The Board may provide for the payment of the actual and necessary expenses, including traveling expenses, of any administrative staff member of the District incurred in the course of performing services for the District, whether within or outside the District, under the direction of the Board and in accordance with the Superintendent’s administrative guidelines. Any reimbursement for other job-related expenses shall be approved by the Superintendent.”

Over and over the WISD’s 2023-2024 check register shows WISD employees being reimbursed for expenditures totalling $2,400/$2,500, under the $3,000 threshold that would require the expenditure (if for travel) to be reported to the public. That is if the WISD had a policy to account for the travel expenditures of all of its employees regardless of the artificial “threshold.”

As the WISD spends its General Fund dollars to push taxpayers for more money in the form of an additional millage, it’s time to push for actual fiscal transparency from the WISD. WISD trustees and its Superintendent owe the taxpayers of Washtenaw County a long overdue, honest, transparent accounting using 21st century technology and tools, including searchable, sortable databases.