I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
Peter Luke writes in the Grand Rapids Press that the steep cuts in state funding for K-12 education is going to be a very difficult sell for legislators in their home districts — especially with the School Aid Fund showing a big surplus in revenue.
As passed by the House, next year’s school budget would cut the minimum foundation allowance by about $426. That’s better than the $470 Snyder’s proposed, but it’s still more than the $340 passed by the Senate.
The reason for the cut is hundreds of millions are proposed to be siphoned from K-12 for those universities and community colleges. Keep all the money for K-12 and schools would be in line for a funding increase. But higher education, along with state-funded health care and other human service programs, also would be getting whacked a lot more than they are.
Snyder’s aim in the budget process has been to pour all state revenue into the same pot and have the sacrifice shared by all recipients of state spending. Unfortunately for Republican lawmakers, who to one degree or another have so far gone along, the public believes K-12 should be protected.
In an EPIC-MRA poll released last week, more than two-thirds of those surveyed opposed steep reductions in school aid. More than 60 percent said they’d support a constitutional amendment introduced by Democrats that would wall off the school aid fund for K-12 schools only.
But now the School Aid Fund surplus is expected to be even larger than anticipated, up to half a billion dollars more than projected during the January revenue estimating conference. Those new estimates set the stage for a possible revolt by some GOP lawmakers when the final budget comes up for a vote after the House and Senate reconcile their bills in a conference committee.
As Luke notes, Lt. Gov. Brian Calley had to break a 19-19 tie to get that budget passed the first time around because of Republican defections over the school cuts. Now that there will be significantly more money in the SAF this year, it’s likely that a few more Republicans will say no to those cuts on the final vote.
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