← SPS By the Numbers · AnalysesAI Generated
★ Office of Superintendent of Predictable Income ★

STARS EXPLOITER

A tycoon game built on a real Washington State school-transit funding formula. The formula pays you exponentially for how far your riders’ bus stops are from school and how many separate schools you serve — but only logarithmically for the rides themselves. Your job: build the most absurd, unaccountable school district the spreadsheet will reward. Maximize funding — worry about audits later.

Select your starting district

Pick a size — a district is dropped in at random from that bucket (by total allocation). Or choose a specific one from the dropdown below.

Formula reproduced from the OSPI STARS Funding Simulator (2025-26 coefficients): Allocation = e^(8.6013 + 0.665·ln(basicRideEq+1) + 0.11·ln(specialRideEq+1) + 0.0152·destinations + 0.0423·avgStopToSchoolMi + 0.0284·ln(landArea) − 0.2078·nonHighNoBus). “Basic”/“special” are ride equivalents — one-way trips plus issued transit passes, so a round-trip rider counts twice — and the distance input is the average bus-stop→school distance, not route length. This is a satire. Real districts are capped by prior-year spending; arcade mode ignores that cap so you can watch it break — precise simulation enforces it.

STARS Funding
$0
Starting Allocation
$0
vs Start (score)
×1.0
Avg Stop→School (mi)
0
Mode
PRECISE
Schools: 0  ·  Avg stop→school: 0 mi  ·  Ride equivalents: 0
Schools stay inside the district (dashed boundary). Longer routes just loop around more.
Tip: click empty space to build a school. Drag schools outward to crank stop→school distance.
Selected school
No school selected. Click a school on the map (in Move mode), or build one.
District-wide
Schools (delivery destinations)
0
Each distinct school served is one destination in the formula — in the exponent at +1.5% each, compounding. Put a ride on each and stretch its distance to make it pay. Click the map to place them too.
Declared land area (sq mi)
0
Logged (weak) funding boost, but unbounded. A physically bigger district also makes longer routes look reasonable, so growing land lowers how angry parents get about ride distance.
Bulk Updates · every school
Basic ride equivalents — scale across all schools
Special ride equivalents — scale across all schools
Stop→school distance — scale across all schools
Percentages multiply each school's current value (+100% = double, −100% = zero). rnd applies a random change per school for some organic chaos.
Live STARS breakdown
Funding = $5,439 base
multiplied by every term below
net multiplier ≈ 1×
$0
Target: ×0 above start  ·  Best: ×1.0  ·  Moves: 0