More on Detroit: school funding

Per-Student Revenue by Source (2011 – 2012)
	Troy	Detroit
Local	5,398	3,548
State	6,967	8,226
Federal	406	4,493
Total	12,771	16,266
State and Federal only	7,373	12,718

Troy is, as some of you may have figured out by now, my hometown, a thoroughly suburban sort of place, whose claim to fame is the upscale Somerset Mall, and who, at one point, figured they were so set financially that they turned down a chance to be home to the Detroit-area Ikea.  So I figure they’re a good comparator, and it is in this case striking that Detroit’s state and federal revenues exceed Troy’s entire revenue.

Put another way, Detroit spends $215,655,823 from local property taxes, and Troy $61,287,580.  Based on the most recent population estimates, we have:

	Troy	Detroit
Total local spending	61,287,580	215,655,823
Population	82,821	688,701
Per capita spending	740	313

Or, another table, based on census data that includes per-capita income:

	Troy	Detroit
Per capita income	40,022	14,870
Local spending	61,287,580	215,655,823
Population	82,821	688,701
Total income	3,314,662,062	10,240,983,870
Local spend as % of income	1.8%	2.1%

Which means that Troy’s residents spend slightly less as a percent of their income, on school funding, than do Detroiters.

But lunch is over.  What’s your take?

(Clarification:  a portion of the property tax, statewide, is collected by the state, and shows up under State revenue.  So this really differentiates between the two cities solely in terms of “additional” property tax.)