Turtle Lake-Mercer 72 vs South Haven
ND · 182 students • KS · 220 students • fiscal year 2024 • swap sides
In one line
- South Haven spends 5% more per student than Turtle Lake-Mercer 72 after adjusting for local price levels.
- South Haven directs 8 more cents of every operating dollar to instruction than Turtle Lake-Mercer 72.
- Turtle Lake-Mercer 72 is far more dependent on local property taxes (44% of revenue vs 19%), which ties its budget more tightly to local property values.
Are these even comparable?
Establish the shape of each district before reading a single dollar figure.
| Turtle Lake-Mercer 72 | South Haven | |
|---|---|---|
| Students enrolled | 182 | 220 |
| Schools | 2 | 2 |
| Grades served | PK–12 | PK–12 |
| Setting | Rural | Rural |
| County | McLean County | Sumner County |
| State | ND | KS |
| Local price level (US = 100) Above 100 means a dollar buys less here than the national average. | 89.0 | 88.9 |
The headline dollar
Current operating spending per student, shown three ways. The first is what each district reports. The second and third are the honest ones for comparison.
| Turtle Lake-Mercer 72 | South Haven | |
|---|---|---|
| Per student, as reported | $17,125 | $17,940 |
| Per student, price-adjusted Divided by the local price level, so both figures are in the same money. | $19,250 | $20,170 |
| Per student, price-adjusted, excluding transport Transportation provision varies enormously between districts and states. Removing it compares the parts both districts actually do. | $17,394 | $19,563 |
| Capital spending per student Buildings and land, never folded into the operating figures above. It is lumpy: a district mid-build looks expensive for two years. | Locked | Locked |
Turtle Lake-Mercer 72
South Haven
Where the money comes from
The funding mix determines how exposed a district is to local property values, to state politics, and to federal programmes ending.
Turtle Lake-Mercer 72
- Local 43.8% Locked
- State 52.1% Locked
- Federal 4.1% Locked
South Haven
- Local 19.0% Locked
- State 77.3% Locked
- Federal 3.7% Locked
| Turtle Lake-Mercer 72 | South Haven | |
|---|---|---|
| Local share of revenue Mostly property tax. A high share means school budgets track local property values, up and down. | 43.8% | 19.0% |
| State share of revenue | 52.1% | 77.3% |
| Federal share of revenue | 4.1% | 3.7% |
| Total revenue | Locked | Locked |
How ND funds its districts
We have not yet written up ND's funding formula, so nothing is claimed here.
How KS funds its districts
We have not yet written up KS's funding formula, so nothing is claimed here.
Where the money goes
The same slices in the same order for both districts, plus the differences by function — because two pie charts side by side hide exactly the thing you want to see.
Turtle Lake-Mercer 72
- Instruction 52.3% Locked
- Instructional staff support 3.5% Locked
- Student support 2.2% Locked
- Operations & maintenance 8.2% Locked
- Transportation 9.6% Locked
- Food service 5.2% Locked
- School administration 3.4% Locked
- District administration 7.8% Locked
- Other support 3.5% Locked
- Other current 9.5% Locked
South Haven
- Instruction 63.1% Locked
- Instructional staff support 1.0% Locked
- Student support 2.3% Locked
- Operations & maintenance 16.5% Locked
- Transportation 3.0% Locked
- Food service 3.3% Locked
- School administration 4.9% Locked
- District administration 3.7% Locked
- Other support 0.0% Locked
- Other current 3.5% Locked
What is actually different
Share of each district's operating dollar, Turtle Lake-Mercer 72 minus South Haven. Two pie charts side by side are almost impossible to read against each other; this is the same data as one chart.
| Turtle Lake-Mercer 72 | South Haven | |
|---|---|---|
| Cents of each operating dollar reaching classrooms Instruction plus instructional staff support, as a share of current spending. | 55.8% | 64.1% |
| Administration share District office plus school administration. | 11.2% | 8.6% |
| Transportation share | 9.6% | 3.0% |
What the money buys
Staffing levels are the most direct thing a budget converts into.
| Turtle Lake-Mercer 72 | South Haven | |
|---|---|---|
| Students per teacher This is a staffing ratio: total enrollment divided by teaching staff. It is NOT average class size. Actual classes are larger than this number in every district. | 8.3 | 10.0 |
| Students per counselor | Locked | Locked |
| Students per administrator | Locked | Locked |
| Total salaries All staff, not teachers alone. | Locked | Locked |
Who they serve
The answer to "but they serve different kids" — which is usually a fair objection.
| Turtle Lake-Mercer 72 | South Haven | |
|---|---|---|
| Child poverty rate Children aged 5 to 17 in poverty within the district boundary. Used instead of free-lunch eligibility, which community eligibility has made unusable for comparison. | 13.2% | 13.7% |
| English learners | — | — |
| Students with disabilities | — | — |
| Enrollment change, 5 years | -1.1% | +5.3% |
Results, and results for the money
Stability and risk
The homebuyer’s real question: what is likely to change after I move in?
Turtle Lake-Mercer 72
No stability flags raised.
South Haven
No stability flags raised.
| Turtle Lake-Mercer 72 | South Haven | |
|---|---|---|
| Enrollment change, 5 years | -1.1% | +5.3% |
| Long-term debt per student | Locked | Locked |
| Debt service share of spending | Locked | Locked |
Enrolling a child
The same checklist for both districts. Every "required" below links to the sentence it came from.
Turtle Lake-Mercer 72
We have not been able to find an enrollment page for this district, so every row in its column below says so rather than guessing at it. Ask the district's registration office directly.
South Haven
Online Enrollment Forms – Enrollment – SOUTH HAVEN USD 509
Almost nothing could be read off this page — usually a portal that builds its content in the browser. Treat the column below as "we could not tell", and open the district's page yourself.
Registration runs through PowerSchool. Read August 23, 2026.
Is a seat at your zoned school guaranteed?
Turtle Lake-Mercer 72
We have no such statement from this district — which is not the same as a promise that your zoned school has room. Most districts never publish the policy in either direction. Ask the school office directly whether your address’s school is enrolling at your child’s grade level before you sign anything.
South Haven
We have no such statement from this district — which is not the same as a promise that your zoned school has room. Most districts never publish the policy in either direction. Ask the school office directly whether your address’s school is enrolling at your child’s grade level before you sign anything.
- This is the district’s own published wording, not our summary of it. Policies are rewritten between enrollment seasons and a page can be out of date the day after we read it — the school office is the only authority on whether a particular grade at a particular school is full right now.
- A warning here is about capacity, not about your address. It does not mean your child will be moved; it means the district has told you in writing that it may move them.
- Required the page says so, and the sentence is quoted.
- Mentioned only it comes up, but not as a requirement — often a sentence saying the district cannot demand it.
- Not mentioned we read the page and it was not on it. That is not the same as "not required".
- Page not read we have no enrollment page for this district.
Documents to bring
| Turtle Lake-Mercer 72 | South Haven | |
|---|---|---|
| Proof of residency | Page not read | Not mentioned |
| Proof of age (usually a birth certificate) | Page not read | Not mentioned |
| Immunisation records | Page not read | Not mentioned |
| Physical examination | Page not read | Not mentioned |
| Dental, vision or hearing screening | Page not read | Not mentioned |
| Tuberculosis test | Page not read | Not mentioned |
| Records from the previous school | Page not read | Not mentioned |
| IEP or 504 plan | Page not read | Not mentioned |
| Custody or guardianship paperwork | Page not read | Not mentioned |
| Parent or guardian photo ID | Page not read | Not mentioned |
| Home language survey | Page not read | Not mentioned |
| Emergency contact information | Page not read | Not mentioned |
| Proof of income | Page not read | Not mentioned |
| Social security number Asked for by some districts. It is not required to enrol, and a school may not refuse a child who does not provide one. We list it because districts ask, not because you must answer. | Page not read | Not mentioned |
How enrolling works
Locked 11 steps of the enrollment process — deadlines, appointments, proof of residency — are not shown. What to bring is above, and stays free.
- A blank row means the requirement did not appear on the district’s page. It does not mean the district will not ask for it — published lists are routinely incomplete, and the registrar has the final word.
- Requirements change every enrollment season. Check the district’s own page, linked above, before you gather anything.
- A district cannot condition enrollment on your child’s immigration status: under Plyler v. Doe (1982) every child resident in the district is entitled to a free public education. If a district asks for something that would reveal status, you are not obliged to provide it.
- If your family is in temporary or shared housing, the McKinney-Vento Act lets a child enrol immediately without the residency and records documents listed here. Ask for the district’s homeless liaison by name.
Comparability notes
- Cross-state comparison. Dollars below are shown both as reported and adjusted to a common price level, because a dollar buys different amounts of teacher in ND and KS.
- At least one district sits outside a metro area with its own published price index, so its cost adjustment uses the statewide index. That is a coarser adjustment.
What these numbers are, exactly
Who decides, and what it costs you
Every band above this one asks what a district spends. This one asks who chose to.
Turtle Lake-Mercer 72
The district levies its own school tax
This district raises property tax in its own name. Who sets the rate varies by state — an elected board in some, a public vote in others — but the levy is the school system’s own, and it is the part of a tax bill that school politics moves most directly.
South Haven
The district levies its own school tax
This district raises property tax in its own name. Who sets the rate varies by state — an elected board in some, a public vote in others — but the levy is the school system’s own, and it is the part of a tax bill that school politics moves most directly.
| Turtle Lake-Mercer 72 | South Haven | |
|---|---|---|
| School property tax levied, per student Only for districts that levy in their own name. Blank where the county or town levies instead — see the cards above, and read the next row. | $6,500 | $1,631 |
| Appropriated by the county or town, per student What the parent government handed the schools, for dependent systems. This is a general appropriation, not solely property tax. | — | — |
| Property tax as a share of all revenue How much of the budget rides on local property values, and therefore on local votes. | 31.9% | 8.5% |
| Long-term debt already owed, per student The balance at the end of the year, for scale. Repaid over decades, so it is a commitment made by earlier boards rather than a bill arriving now. | Locked | Locked |
| Debt service as a share of spending Interest plus principal repaid this year, against total spending. This is the part of the debt that is being paid now, out of money that would otherwise reach a classroom. | Locked | Locked |
| New long-term debt issued, per student Money borrowed during fiscal year 2024. What this figure does and does not tell you is set out under the table. | $0 | $0 |
- Turtle Lake-Mercer 72: issued no new long-term debt in fiscal year 2024. That is a reported zero, not a gap in the data.
- South Haven: issued no new long-term debt in fiscal year 2024. That is a reported zero, not a gap in the data.
- A figure in the borrowing row is not a bond voters approved. It records debt issued, and that includes refinancing existing debt at a new rate — which changes nothing about what a district owes — as well as certificates of participation and lease-revenue debt, which in many states a board can issue with no referendum at all. To find out what was actually on a ballot, check the county election office.
- Debt is repaid over decades. A large balance per student is a commitment made by earlier boards and earlier voters, not a bill arriving this year. The debt service row above it is the part being paid now.
Who sits on the board
South Haven board of education
- Matt Theurer — President
- Reese Blaylock — Vice President
- Seth Brown — Member
- Kalen Fitch — Member
- Don Minor — Member
- Steve Nicholson — Member
- Jennifer Strickland — Member
- When the board meets: “The South Haven Board of Education meets on the second Monday of the month at 6:00 PM in the Cardinal Conference Room.”
- The public may speak: “BCBI Public Participation at Board Meetings”
Read from the district’s own board page on 2026-08-24. Boards change; the district’s page is the current record, not ours.
These seats are elected, and what this board decides — the budget, the attendance boundaries, the calendar — is decided at a meeting the public may attend. The district’s own board page, linked above, is where it publishes the schedule and the agenda. We do not hold meeting dates or contact details for these people.
Funding measures on the ballot
Turtle Lake-Mercer 72
We hold every school funding measure the state of ND published for 2018, 2020 and 2022, and this district appears in none of them.
What this state publishes: School district ballot questions from the North Dakota Secretary of State's results export, for the 26 elections that office lists back to June 2000. Ten of them carry a school layer at all — every June primary from 2010 on, plus the November generals of 2010 and 2022 — and nothing in the source says whether the empty years before that are years no district asked or years the layer does not reach. Elections held on their own date are missing entirely: only primaries and generals are archived here, so a district's September bond special is not in this file. This is thin coverage and the reason is worth stating plainly. The export records whatever the county auditor typed as the contest name, and nothing else — no ballot wording, no dollar amount, no outcome. Of the 107 school questions it holds, 64 ask whether the board may publish its proceedings in the newspaper, which is not a funding measure; 6 have no contest name at all; and 30 more are a bare label such as 'School District Measure 1', which the state's own biennial publication requirement makes most likely to be that same minutes question rather than a request for money. Those are left out rather than guessed at. That leaves 5 measures, in the four districts whose auditor wrote what was being asked. A North Dakota district shown with no measures may well have asked its voters for money; this source cannot say.
South Haven
We have not read KS’s election results, so this column is empty because of us and not because of South Haven. Whether it has asked its voters for money is a question its county election office can answer and we cannot, yet.
Nobody has read KS’s school election results yet — that is a gap on our side, not a fact about this district. Its county elections office holds what it asked its voters for and what they answered, and that is a public record you can request. What it says is worth asking about at a board meeting.
The detailed figures for Turtle Lake-Mercer 72 and South Haven
The verdict, the headline dollar, the funding shares, who is served and every comparability caveat are free above, and stay free. What is behind the lock is the detail you would want before acting on any of it:
- capital spending per student
- total revenue and total current spending, and the funding mix in dollars (the percentage shares stay free)
- the ten-line per-student breakdown of where the money goes
- counselor and administrator ratios, and the total salary bill
- the debt behind the risk flags — per student, and as a share of spending
- the enrollment process — deadlines, appointments and proof of residency
$1.79 for both, for three months, 21 cents less than buying them one at a time.
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