Appleton superintendent outlines how each dollar is spent, cites $13 million deficit

Greg Archus, superintendent for the Appleton Area School District, said in an explainer video that the district faces a $13,000,000 deficit and described how the district spends each dollar of its budget.

Archus said the district reports spending data to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction and is audited annually. "So this is how we spend every dollar. It starts with 54¢," he said, stating that more than half of spending goes to instruction — teachers, paraprofessionals, curriculum support, classroom technology and co‑curricular activities.

The nut graf: Archus framed the breakdown as an attempt to answer community questions about where money goes and to show that cutting district administrators alone would not close the budget gap. He listed the major categories of spending and the approximate per‑dollar shares to give residents a clearer sense of priorities and tradeoffs.

In the details, Archus said 54¢ of every dollar goes to instruction; the next-largest category is operations, which includes technology services, property and casualty insurance, workers' compensation and costs tied to open enrollment and district business functions. He said 12¢ goes to student services (social workers, counselors, psychologists, nurses and deans), 7¢ to facilities (maintenance, cleaning and utilities), 6¢ to administration (including administrators and support positions such as a communications coordinator and community liaison), 5¢ to food and community services (breakfast and lunch, with federal reimbursements), and 3¢ to student transportation.

Archus provided several numeric and staffing details: he said the district educates about 15,000 students from 9,000 families with a roughly $300,000,000 budget; it has 71 administrators (46 school‑based principals or assistant principals and 25 district administrators). "If we spent at the state average, we would have 25 more administrators in our district," he said, adding that Appleton spends "36% less than the state average on administrators." He also said cutting the 25 district positions would reduce salaries by less than a quarter of the stated $13,000,000 deficit.

On co‑curriculars, Archus said the district's full co‑curricular budget for elementary, middle and high school activities — sports, clubs, debate and elementary STEM activities — is about $2,800,000. He defended facility investments by describing their extensive use: gyms and fitness centers are used before and after school, during weekends and in summer, and support physical education and extracurricular programming.

Archus directed listeners to data published by the Department of Public Instruction for the underlying figures and noted the district's annual external audit. He framed the presentation as informational and did not announce any formal decisions or proposed cuts during the video. The video is presented as part of a series; Archus said more detail and data are available on the DPI site.