The Fund Balance report provides an overview of the assets and liabilities of a district by year. The difference between the assists and liabilities is either the fund balance (when assets are greater) or the fund deficit (when liabilities are greater).
The report provides important insights about how districts’ assets and liabilities balance. It can be used to view, analyze, and compare fund balance data across districts, school years, and the state. The report can also be used to see if a district is running a fund deficit (i.e., are liabilities more than assets in any given year?). Percent columns reflect the percentage of each Fund Type in relation to the Operating Expenditures of the entity.
Finances can be complex, so use caution about forming conclusions. For example, a district may be running a deficit in certain funds, but when all of their funds are taken into account and added together, their fund balance may be fine.
This report is updated in early winter. See the Recently Posted Reports page for when the reports were last updated.
Use the Location and Report Settings to select a location, school year and fund type.
Data view options include:
- Snapshot (a graph and table of the selected data)
- Trend (a graph and table showing changes over time)
- Entity Breakdown (a table shows the data for the selected entity and related entities; if you’ve selected a particular district, the Entity Breakdown would show data for that district, ISD and the state)
See the MI School Data Quick Start Guide for the basics of navigating the site and customizing a report.
Location Options
These options can be customized in the Location and Report Settings.
Locations Setting options: Statewide, ISD and District
CEPI collected the data used to compile this report using the Financial Information Database. Details about the FID can be found on the FID web page. The data reported in this report were submitted and certified through the FID collection by each district/ISD. As such, outliers observed in the report reflect data as received by CEPI within the collection period of FID data. Late submissions and/or corrected data submitted by districts/ISDs after the FID collection was closed will be included in a spring release of financial data; therefore, data in this report are subject to change. Users may identify, interpret, and use anomalous data values accordingly.
Financial statements of school districts in Michigan are prepared in conformity with U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles for government units. These accounting rules used to prepare, present, and report financial statements are established by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board.
The Michigan Department of Education publishes Change Notices on their website when names and/or descriptions of accounting codes are changed or added to the Michigan Public School Accounting Manual. MI School Data uses the most recent name changes to the accounting codes in the financial reports; however, users can view the historical names and descriptions of accounting codes by going to the Michigan Public School Accounting Manual page where Change Notices going back to 2014 can be found.
The Michigan Public School Accounting Manual serves as the guide to uniform classification and recording of accounting transactions for public school districts. Refer to the manual for a better understanding of the classifications, categories and definitions used by districts and found in this report. The Appendix - Definition of Account Codes is a useful reference.
If you have questions not addressed here or in the linked resources, please contact CEPI customer support at cepi@michigan.gov.
Report Labels
See the Glossary for additional terms and acronyms used on MI School Data.
