MICHIGAN SCHOOL TRANSPORTATION

What today's price adds to next year's tab

Click a district. Reported bus fuel spending, , compared with this week’s diesel price.

Michigan school districts — click one, or choose from the list

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Select a district on the map to see its numbers.

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1 Bus fuel spending is the Vehicle Fuel line of each district’s Transportation Expenditures Report (SE-4094), all report sections combined, Michigan CEPI, MI School Data, . Each district’s estimate starts from its most recent year with reported fuel spending, which is for most districts. The "at today's price" figure is not a real expenditure — it's a price-ratio estimate: latest-year spend × (this week's diesel price ÷ that fiscal year's average diesel price), assuming the district uses roughly the same amount of fuel today and that all of its bus fuel costs move with the diesel price.

2 General Fund budget: each district's own total FY2024 General Fund expenditures (Michigan CEPI Financial Information Database, Fund Code 11) — the district's core annual operating budget, covering instruction, staff, buildings, and everything else, including transportation. FY2024 is the latest year of district-level budget data used here.

3 Scale comparisons, not claims that districts would actually spend the money this way. Teacher salary: U.S. BLS May 2023 Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics for Michigan, averaged across elementary, middle, and high school teachers (~$68,480/year). School bus: average price of a new diesel school bus (~$135,000), per U.S. Department of Energy figures cited in a New Mexico Legislature LESC bill analysis (HB32, 2025). School counselor: BLS May 2024 median salary for Michigan school counselors (~$63,240/year). School paraprofessional: BLS May 2025 Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, averaged across Michigan metro areas for teaching assistants (~$33,000/year; no single statewide figure is published for this occupation).

4 Per-student figures use each district's Fall 2023 audited FTE pupil count (General Education + Section 52 + Section 53 special education), Michigan CEPI District FTE Count, 2023-24. This is a headcount-based average, not a claim about how any individual family's costs change.

Diesel prices: U.S. EIA, Midwest (PADD 2) ultra-low sulfur diesel retail price, week of . The price updates automatically each week when EIA publishes a new figure; fiscal-year averages are the average of EIA’s monthly prices from July through June. School figures update once a year, when the state publishes new data. District shapes: U.S. Census Bureau cartographic boundary files (2025), unified school districts.

Covers of Michigan's reporting school entities — traditional public school districts with their own Census-mapped geographic boundary. Intermediate school districts (county-wide service agencies) and public school academies (charter schools) are excluded here: neither has its own district boundary in this dataset, so they can't be placed on the map. Their fuel spending is still real and still reported to the state — they're just not part of this map-based view. Including them, the true statewide total increase is approximately .