Take Action on State School Aid Fund Today!

I just got this from Michigan Parents for Schools:

Dear Friends,

Once again, we wait to see what kind of funding our community K-12 schools will receive next year. All we have to go on are the three alternate plans produced earlier this year. Once again, we wait for key lawmakers to emerge from secret talks in the proverbial "smoke-filled rooms" and tell us what's best for our schools. It's been a long time since parents have had a direct voice in those talks. But here we are - we are watching, and we vote.

Since it's hard to know what details are being negotiated, it's hard for us to advocate for one thing over another. We know that there will be no "surprise bump" in school aid revenue next year, which in recent years has allowed the legislature to appear generous at the last minute. So maybe it's time that we set down what we believe and what we want for our schools.

If you agree, please join us in letting our state leaders know what we really want them to do! Take action now!

1) It's time to stop re-slicing the school funding pie, and instead make sure the pie is large enough for schools to do what we want them to do. Every school district should see its funding keep up with rising costs, and at a very minimum keep up with inflation. None of the three earlier budget proposals would do this. We need to restore the cuts made to school aid over the last decade, and we need to do so in a fair way.

2) Equal isn't always equitable. Some students need more help than others, and we need to make sure our schools can give all students the help they need. Our school funding system should offer more help where it's needed, and not at the expense of goal #1 above.

3) We know there are meaningful steps that can be taken to improve all schools. We've been discussing some measures to help all children become enthusiastic readers and others to provide the professionals who teach our children with feedback and support to refine their craft. And we don't just mean more testing. Whatever programs we choose as a state must be based on solid research and need to have their costs covered by increased funding - not by carving out existing funds.

4) Lastly, we've been flying blind for years, setting state school funding without checking to see if it was adequate. There is a law on the books which will require the state to conduct a study to see what it costs for schools to do everything we're asking of them. Our leaders should have the courage to perform that study, and not sweep it under the rug as some have recently suggested.

These are our basic principles. There is a lot of detail behind them, but this list covers the core ideas. Let's send a message to our lawmakers - it's time to stop playing clever games with school funding and instead do right by the children and communities of this state!

Thanks for making a difference,

Steve Norton
Michigan Parents for Schools

This last link: http://capwiz.com/miparentsforschools/issues/alert/?alertid=66128626

allows you to TAILOR your message to state legislators. Please take action!

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You Should Be Super Mad Right Now: Legislators Rob School Aid Fund

As a friend wrote on Facebook, 

"This just makes my blood boil."

What was she talking about? She was talking about today's House vote to steal money from the School Aid Fund to fill a General Fund deficit. 

This clip art is derived from clip art
released into the public domain by the Open Clip Art Library. clipartist.net also recommends donating
any clip art you make to the Open Clip Art Library
and any images you create to Wikimedia Commons.

Excerpt #1 from Kyle Feldscher's MLive article, or 

How are we screwing our school districts this time?:

HB 4110 would shift $167 million from the K-12 portion of the School Aid Fund to the community college portion of the fund. The money that would be freed up by the move would then go toward the general fund deficit.
The legislation also uses $80 million that was initially intended to be paid toward Michigan Public School Employees Retirement System (MPSERS) to pay down the deficit. That payment would have been above and beyond the required payment to MPSERS, according to state officials.
"Two hundred and fifty million dollars is being siphoned from the School Aid Fund," said Rep. Sarah Roberts, D-St. Clair Shores. "This money could be used to significantly increase the foundation allowance in support of improving education here in the state of Michigan."

Excerpt #2: 

In which the Republican legislators try to make this sound like it's budget-neutral. It's not.

The School Aid Fund was projected to end the fiscal year with a $283.5 million surplus.

Rep. Al Pscholka, R-Stevensville, said he was voting in favor of the bill in order to balance the budget and "uphold the Constitution." The Michigan Constitution requires a balanced budget.
"I'm proud of the fact that we are balancing this budget without touching kids, without touching colleges, without touching universities," Pscholka said.

The House passed the bill 62-48. Surprise! It was mostly Republicans who voted for it, and Democrats who voted against it.

And here's Excerpt #3, which explains something you might be wondering:
Why do we have this deficit after all? I thought there was going to be a budget surplus! (You weren't dreaming.)

The budget shortfall in fiscal year 2015 is the result of businesses in Michigan cashing in old Michigan Business Tax credits issued between 1996 and 2011. Representatives from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation said Wednesday the state is on the hook for $9.38 billion in leftover tax liability until 2032 due to the credits.

Right. You read that correctly. 9.38 BILLION DOLLARS. I can predict how this story goes over the next ten years. Unless we change what we're doing.

Translation: We could have shored up our schools' foundation allowances. We could have supported the school retirement funds and thus reduced the burden on our schools (which now spend something like 1/4 of their foundation allowance on pensions). We could have protected the school aid fund for K-12 funding. [And really--I'm all for community colleges! But as I mentioned the other day, we already pay--quite a bit--for them.]

In any case, we should not be subsidizing businesses at the expense of schools.
I suppose you could still say something to your state senator...if you live somewhere else. I'm pretty sure Sen. Rebekah Warren already agrees with me.

Read the full article here.

Consider subscribing to Ann Arbor Schools Musings by Email!

Michigan School Finance Primer: Part II, An Interview & More!

A few months ago, I sat down with Michigan Parents for Schools Executive Director Steven Norton for an interview. I had the best intentions of publishing a finished interview all at once, but--what can I say--that didn't happen, and I've decided to use the interview in several pieces. Today's piece provides some more context, information, and background for school finance discussions. You can find Michigan Parents for Schools on the web at mipfs.org, and on facebook as well.

Me: Looking at more recent history, how did we get into this fix, with school districts continually being in a position where they need to cut more and more?

Courtesy of Michigan Parents for Schools, mipfs.org

To be honest, people didn’t see this coming. Almost everything was being driven by the economy. People saw a cliff coming, but most people expected an economic recovery to give breathing room. That we would at least recover some of what we’d lost. Instead, in Gov. Snyder’s very first budget, not only did he make big tax cuts on individuals to balance the budget, but he also eliminated the Michigan Business Tax and replaced it with a much much smaller corporate income tax. The direct impact was the removal of $800 million dollars from the School Aid Fund. He also took money from the School Aid Fund, $400 million, for higher education. So that in a year where the economic projections would have said that more money would have come into the School Aid Fund, in fact there were huge cuts to K-12.  [Ed. Note: Funding for K-12 schools from the School Aid Fund was cut by more than 10%.]

Me: I thought they fixed the pension system, but the school districts keep pointing to retirement costs. 

Although they ‘fixed’ the pension system, they did so by pushing all of the adjustment costs onto schools and current employees. The existence of a pension for school employees is written into the constitution, and districts do not control the amount the school district needs to donate. 

Current employees are paying a lot more [into the retirement system] (effective pay cut of 4%) and the other money is coming directly out of the School Aid Fund. They also really downgraded the benefits of future employees. And for the next five years, all of the projected revenue to the School Aid Fund will be eaten up by higher contributions to the pension system.”

Me: Where do teachers fit in all of this? 

People say, “We should cut the teachers [salaries] more.” Well, these are the people who take care of our children. How do we want to treat our employees? When we have the opportunity to make smart policy for state employees, shouldn’t we do that? We have to look at the long term. And this is happening in every community. This is a conversation that we need to have.”

 [Bold=Emphasis added.]

Steve's bottom line: 

“There is a lot of work to be done changing the discourse around public education.  It’s easy to get lost in the specifics but there is an underlying misapprehension of some of the key issues. There’s a lot of work to be done with people talking to people. You need to talk to your neighbors, educate them about the facts.”

By the way, you can read more about the issues around retirement in this May 2013 report from the Citizens Research Council--Funding for Public Education: The Recent Impact of Increased MPSERS Contributions.

Save Michigan's Public Schools: Rally & Handout

Save Michigan's Public Schools Rally is 

today, Wednesday June 19, 2013, 

at the Capitol Building in Lansing, 

starting at 11:30 a.m. 

If you are able to be there, I hope you will!

I liked what Steve Norton, Executive Director of Michigan Parents for Schools, had to say about the purpose of the rally:

The focus isn't on trying to change minds inside the Capitol. . . but on getting all Michiganders who care about education, our children and our state to get informed and get active. There is a lot of work to do. Join us!

And, in fact, Steve Norton and Betsy Coffia have put together an excellent flyer that can be used tomorrow, or distributed anytime. I like it so much that I am sharing it here in two formats: a .jpg and a .pdf.

With the .jpg format I think you can simply click on the picture for a larger view; for the .pdf, click on the link. (Thanks Jeff Bailey for converting the link from a .pdf to a .jpg for me.)

Here is the .pdf.

And here is the .jpg: 

Courtesy of Michigan Parents for Schools, 6/18/2013. Visit facebook.com/SaveMiPublicSchools

Courtesy of Michigan Parents for Schools, 6/18/2013. Visit facebook.com/SaveMiPublicSchools

And remember: 

Value Menus are for Burgers, Not Schools!

Restore the $1.4 Billion to Our Schools!

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).

State Funding Update--Action Requested

I just got this in my inbox from Michigan Parents for Schools.

Dear Friends,

I wanted to share with you this message which my colleague Elizabeth Lykins just sent out to parents and concerned citizens in the Grand Rapids area. I think she hits the nail on the head.

Steve Norton

Executive Director, MIPFS

Click here to call your local lawmakers about the school aid budget!

---

CALL LANSING TODAY

Action items are first. Greater detail follows. If you have already made calls or sent emails, THANK YOU. If not, take a couple of minutes and do this for your community. The cuts we are all suffering are drastic; they could be MUCH deeper if some of the proposed legislation passes.

Tell your lawmakers:

1. To oppose any reduction to the total per pupil funding. It is dishonest for legislators to claim that they are increasing per pupil funding while simultaneously reducing other types of aid that our public schools depend on, resulting, in fact, in a net loss to school budgets. They all claim to support schools - start showing it. So far, many have not.
2. To remove from the final school aid budget the provision requiring school districts to allow students to take two online classes per year. This would siphon money from our schools, while giving it to private online vendors who are not held accountable for student academic performance (while at the same time holding our schools accountable for the students' academic performance in those online classes).
3. Not to resolve the road crisis (or any other tax issues) on the backs of our schools. The legislature would be acting in a highly irresponsible way by removing the funding that gas taxes provide for schools without an assured funding replacement - one that does not rely on a ballot measure. Find the replacement BEFORE voting on any cuts.
4. To stop using money from the School Aid Fund for purposes other than K-12 funding. The School Aid Fund has enough money to restore the per pupil funding cuts of the last several years and actually invest in K-12 public education - but not if those funds continue to be divided among other recipients, such as universities and community colleges.
5. There is $400 million surplus in the general fund - please use it to restore money taken from our children.

ISSUE: The School Aid Budget
Currently, with the two budget proposals (House and Senate versions), local school districts can expect more cuts - again. In addition to the proposed funding cuts, we are concerned about a provision that is in both budget versions. This provision would require school districts to pay private online vendors, who are unaccountable for student academic performance, for up to two classes per year if students choose this option. This could potentially siphon more money away from our schools. Experience with a similar program in Louisiana shows that this could be a huge opportunity for fraud.

ISSUE: Roads vs. Schools.
Several bills would shift gas taxes, which benefit schools, to other fuel taxes that are exclusively committed to transportation. This would result in about an $800 million reduction in the School Aid Fund. The effect of such a shift would be at least a $500 per pupil cut on top of the funding decreases we are already trying to manage. This would be devastating. Replacement revenue has not been guaranteed. Another bill has been proposed that would eliminate transfer taxes on used cars (which also benefits the school aid fund).

My sincerest thanks,
Elizabeth