May 2012 - State Budget

Investing in our kids? Not so much.

It's budget time once again in Michigan, and this time it's an election year. After taking half a billion dollars out of K-12 education last year, and passing tax cuts that permanently remove some $700 million which would have been dedicated to the state school aid fund, you might think that helping out local school districts might be at the top of our lawmakers' lists. Right?

Think again. If the litany of legislation passed over the last year which undermines our local schools was not enough (that is, last year's budget cuts to K-12 and using the School Aid Fund for colleges and universities, the expansion of for-profit charter schools and online charters, pending "parent trigger" legislation, teacher evaluation rules that are punitive and test-driven), school funding is being held flat this year. Inflation is expected to run around 2-3%, and health care costs continue their breathtaking rise, but no matter.

Priorities, priorities

In fact, legislative leaders have been saying that "helping" K-12 schools is well down their list of priorities - after income tax cuts, moving money to the budget stabilization fund, and paying down debt (by which they mean reducing the obligations to the state school employee retirement system by any means necessary). Just days ago, state House Speaker Jase Bolger (R-Marshall) proposed using the anticipated $300 million surplus to cut the income tax rate ahead of schedule, a generous move which would have saved middle-income earners around $25 dollars in taxes. Now reports are surfacing that this tax cut will take place next April instead - at a cost of around one third of the anticipated surplus.

End of an era

Why not use that money to restore funding to K-12 education - and other public services, for that matter? Good question. Evidently, our Governor and legislative leaders must think schools are getting the funding they deserve. The taxes that support the state School Aid Fund were set back when Proposal A was passed. Even then, massive transfers from the general state budget were required to hold K-12 spending constant while bringing up the lowest spending districts. Over time, those transfers dwindled down to almost nothing.

Now, that same revenue stream - which has not even allowed school funding to keep up with inflation - is to be permanently shared by local school districts, community colleges and state universities. Message to Lansing: we don't mind sharing, but make sure the funding is adequate for the task!

One sign of the change comes in the deletion of a little-noticed provision of this year's budget bill. One of the obscure details of the law requires state economists to calculate a "school aid index" twice each year, to indicate how per-pupil funding should move. The index takes into account the total revenue of the school aid fund and the estimated number of pupils to say how much more money will be available per student. One provision requires that the lowest foundation allowance be increased by this amount, unless the legislature specifically overrides it.

Naturally, the legislature has overridden it every year and set the funding according to their own priorities. But the promise was there - not only than the full revenue of the School Aid Fund should be earmarked for K-12 education, but that per-pupil spending should rise with available revenue.

The promise, however, is about to disappear; repeal of this particular provision was one of the items on which the Governor and the Legislature agreed in their draft budgets. With it goes the evidence of the original intent of the law: to dedicate the revenue then committed to the SAF for use in K-12 education.

Speak out

Will strangling our local public schools strengthen our communities or help our economy grow? I don't think so, either. Let's use our voices, and let our lawmakers know where they should put their priorities. Good schools aren't a luxury that has to wait until the economy improves; good schools are the very foundation of stable and prosperous communities. Our children are learning and growing every day - what will we teach them?

Steven J Norton

Executive Director