AAPS Budget, Public Hearing, Rick DeKeon Wednesday May 28, 2014

Wednesday, May 28th, the Ann Arbor school board will have a public hearing on the proposed AAPS budget. The meeting starts at 7 p.m.

Here are some options:
1. Go and talk during public commentary
2. Watch the board meeting on t.v. (CTN Comcast Channel 18, and also available for online streaming, but not for on-demand replay--yet. The replay schedule is: Thursday @ 1:30pm, Saturday @ 8am, Sunday @ 1pm)
3. Email the school board with your thoughts at boe@aaps.k12.mi.us.

The board will vote on the budget at their next meeting, in two weeks.

Essential Reading

Here is the proposed AAPS 2014-2015 budget.

Here are the proposed expenditures and revenue enhancements. (Looks like a summary sheet, essentially.)

Here is the proposed budget plan. (How the budget gap will be closed.)

Compare the governor's, senate's, and house's education proposals and their impact on the AAPS budget. (There are also some slides from the new finance director--Marios Demetriou,
Assistant Superintendent, Finance and Operations--that, to be honest, I did not completely understand. Explanatory text would be nice.)

Major Proposals

How do you feel about the proposal to freeze all staff salaries, with no step or salary increases for any group? (Teachers, for example, took a 3% pay cut last year that was supposed to be a one-year pay cut. This would not be restored.)

How do you feel about the outsourcing of custodial work? (The main expected savings here has to do with the fact that the district has to pay into the state retirement fund for employees--if the positions are privatized, the state retirement fund doesn't have to be paid.)

Here are some things I've written about privatization in the past:

Transportation Lessons, 2010-2012 (February 2012)

Just Say No to Privatization (January 2010)

What do you think about Christine Stead's suggestion that the district should investigate whether there would be any possibility of suing the state for the constant cuts the district has had to make, since we are not being "held harmless?" (I LOVE IT.)

Let the school board know how you feel!

Special Bonus! 

Rick DeKeon
from a2schools.org

If you go to tomorrow's meeting. . . there is also a proposal to rename the Northside School Gym in honor of Rick DeKeon, well-loved Northside physical education teacher.

As the proposal says,

On behalf of Northside Principal, Monica Harrold, Northside staff, students, parents and alumni, it is my pleasure to present to you a recommendation, pursuant to Ann Arbor Public School Board of Education Policy 7150- Naming, to name the Northside Elementary School gym after former Ann Arbor Northside Elementary School physical education teacher and local coach Richard (Rick) Dekeon. 
Mr. Dekeon, a much beloved teacher at Northside for 25 years, passed away on November 8, 2013 leaving behind an incredible legacy that extends well beyond the Northside community.

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Michigan School Finance Primer: Part 1 (With Awesome Graphics)

My friend and I were discussing the Ann Arbor schools budget. (I know, wild and crazy, right?) She was saying, "Why can't we do X," and "Why can't we do Y," and I was saying, "It's because of how Michigan's school finance system works." And she said, "It's so confusing. I need a graphic or something."

So here is my attempt at graphics. Over the coming year I will try and do a series of pieces about Michigan's school finance system. Yes, it's all stuff you need to know.

Shelly, these are for you (and for the rest of you too.) Apologies for the white out--my high school friends used to say I could never write a complete page without crossing something out...

This fine drawing done by Ruth Kraut (2013). It's ok to use it if credit is given.
And I think if you want to see it better, just click on it to enlarge it.

This fine drawing done by Ruth Kraut (2013). It's ok to use it if credit is given.
And I should have mentioned in the graphic that in the post-Proposal A
world, the state generally was providing 80% of the school funding.
If you want to see the drawing better, just click on it to enlarge it.

The basics come from a paper done by the Senate Fiscal Agency in 2004 by Kathryn Summers-Coty, Proposal A: Are We Better Off? A Ten-Year Analysis 1993-1994 through 2003-2004. We'll take a closer look at that in a later post, but I found this paper to be stunning. It uses certain assumptions to compare 1993-1994 (all thoroughly described in the paper) and concludes that ten years later,

out of 553 school districts, 28 are better off with Proposal A and 525 are worse off in terms of combined State and local revenue. Essentially, this means that comparing actual 2003-04 State Aid payments plus districts' actual 2003-04 local property tax revenue with estimated State payments and local revenue if Proposal A had not happened, yields less money for 95% of the districts (p. 2, emphases added).

So How Are Those Emergency Manager School Districts Doing?!

I took this from the Save Michigan's Public Schools facebook page (a good page to join if you are interested), and it kind of boggles the mind.

Under the management of EFM Don Witherspoon, Muskegon Heights, the first fully privatized Michigan school district, has just borrowed $3.5 million from the State of Michigan. From Gongwer:

"Two of the school districts currently under emergency financial management were approved Friday for a total $6.5 million in emergency loans from the state.

The Local Emergency Financial Assistance Loan Board found that both Highland Park Public Schools and Muskegon Heights Public Schools would run deficits for the current school year and needed the loans to cover those shortfalls.

Highland Park will borrow $3 million and Muskegon Heights $3.5 million. Under the loan agreements, Treasurer Andy Dillon would have to approve use of the funds, which are only to pay vendors.

The districts are alone in having their operations passed to a charter school management company as part of the effort to repair their finances. Managers in both districts found they would not be able to balance their budgets under their prior management structures."

Well, I guess they couldn't balance their budgets under the new management structures, either, and. . . oh, yeah. . . with the new management structures there is no public representation. . .