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 Senate
Panel Holds its Nose, Moves K-12 Budget
MIRS, June 9, 2005
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Nobody seems to
like the Senate's $12.7 billion version of the Fiscal Year (FY)
2006 K-12 budget, but it moved out of the Senate Appropriations
Committee today anyway because Republicans were under
instructions to put it there.
But if today's reaction to the budget is any indication to the
type of support it will get on the Senate floor, lawmakers are
going to need to find some money to put into three particular
pots.
For one, the battle over the "20j" money is continuing this
year. This Proposal A-equalizing pot of money is handed out to
the state's 51 school districts that were net losers when the
1994 ballot proposal changed how the state pays for public
education. It's a regionalized issue. It affects schools in the
districts of Senate Appropriations Chair Shirley JOHNSON
(R-Troy) and Sen. Mickey SWITALSKI (D-Roseville), among others.
The Governor didn't touch the 20j money, but the Senate
initially cut it by $25.5 million so that schools with more than
2,000 students would get only half of the 20j money than the
year before. The committee raised that percentage to 67 percent
at a cost of $8.3 million at the expense of two new programs ($1
million), the laptops-for-6th-graders plan ($4 million), a
math-and-science science center ($600,000) and the Intermediate
School Districts ($2 million) and special education.
When it's all said and done, Johnson and Switalski vowed to work
for 100 percent. Switalski tried to find the money by suggesting
the Senate approve the Governor's plan to end a tax expenditure
on vending machines, a $25 million revenue generator. The
Republicans weren't going along with that.
He then suggested the Republicans take some money out of the
$126 million set aside for the Merit Scholarship this year. That
went over like a lead balloon on the GOP side, too.
But money is going to have come from somewhere. Sen. Bill
HARDIMAN (R-Kentwood) said he couldn't support a K-12 spending
bill that cuts money to students who received free or reduced
priced lunches ("at-risk money") to $291 million. The Governor
suggested $311. Hardiman found another $1 million in committee
today by trimming the Michigan Virtual University and the Center
for Performance and Information (CEPI), but he said he's is
going to need a more than that.
The Detroit delegation wants the final $15 million payment it
says the city is entitled to for swallowing a state-sponsored
reform board to replace their elected school board.
So why is the K-12 budget so short? The May Review Estimating
Conference determined that there will be less money for
lawmakers to appropriate. Senate leadership refused to do any of
the Governor's proposed $200 million in tax increases, which
shorted the budget another $48 million. Two new spending items
in the budget totaling $20 million ($18 million for community
colleges and $2 million for payment in lieu of taxes, PILT, for
local school districts) ate up some money, too.
The K-12 budget embodied in SB 0279 does boost per-pupil funding
$175 per student. The Citizens Research Council said that $125
of that will go toward increased teacher health care and benefit
costs, but the Senate Fiscal Agency put that number at closer to
$80.
Note from MIRS 6/10: In the June 9, 2005, edition of MIRS, in
the story, "Senate Panel Holds Its Nose, Moves K-12 Budget," the
Governor's recommendation on the future of 20j payments to
schools was initially reported incorrectly. The Governor is
suggesting full funding for 20j. The Senate subcommittee on K-12
suggested that the amount schools receive be cut by 50 percent
for districts with more than 2,000 students.
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