K-12 funding left up in the air

A marathon Friday session at the Capitol ended in the wee hours of Saturday morning and Michigan lawmakers began summer vacation after approving several bills and giving the nod to parts of the next state budget — but failing to agree on funding public schools.

The Legislature is working on a $44 billion spending plan that must be in place by Oct. 1, the beginning of fiscal 2009. Compared to last year, the process is running ahead of schedule and is a much quieter affair than the battle that caused a brief shutdown of the government.

Before the gavel came down, lawmakers made decisions about funding universities and community colleges, but a vote on how much cash will go to public schools will wait until lawmakers return late in the summer.

The funding for K-12 did not come before the Senate because of a rift between the Republican-controlled body and the Democratic governor. Gov. Jennifer Granholm wants to scale back many local high schools in favor of smaller schools in some Michigan cities. Granholm wants 100 new small high schools with less than 400 students. Granholm says her plan will help slow down the ever-increasing dropout rate and improve test scores. “The bottom line is we need to address this dropout rate if we’re to be competitive as a state and give every child a chance,” Granholm said.

Continued -But Republicans in the state Senate say the plan will cost too much. They say that with the current economy, they don’t want to borrow money for the huge startup costs. Senate spokesman Matt Marsden said the money would be better spent by giving more dollars per student in all schools statewide.

The lack of a vote has left administrators in public school districts all over the state facing a summer with no idea how much in state funds they will have come Oct. 1.

Unlike public school administrators, college administrators do know how much they’ll get, but it is less than they hoped for. Both the House and Senate approved a bill Friday that will give the state’s 15 public four-year universities a 1 percent across-the-board increase. That is short of the 3 percent increase that was in the first draft of the budget. Community colleges would get a funding increase of about 2 percent.
Gov. Granholm only got $15 million of the $40 million she wanted for the so-called “No worker left behind act.” That money will be used to help retrain laid-off Michigan workers.

A budget item to train 100 new Michigan State Police officers and to provide more money for police labs was also approved before the summer recess.

The Senate also approved the 2009 budget for the Department of Human Services. The budget contains an incentive for those who cooperate with welfare-to-work requirements. It increased the administrative daily rate paid to all child-placing agencies for foster care services to $27 and restored funding for the MSU Kinship Resource Center and Camp O’Malley, the Alto camp run by the boys and girls clubs for West Michigan youngsters. “The DHS budget represents a reasonable compromise between all parties involved, while recognizing the current realities of our state’s funding restraints,” said Bill Hardiman, R-Kentwood.  “It concentrates on ways that the state can most effectively reach Michigan residents that rely on our human services programs.”