Michigan House Republicans say they plan to unveil their proposal for school spending in the state budget Wednesday morning.
Leadership of the subcommittee in charge of the process says total spending would build on last year’s budget and come in slightly above proposals from the state Senate and governor. It would include $12,000 in per-student funding for schools.
Representative Tim Kelly (R-Saginaw Twp) said the plan will prioritize base-spending for schools. That's instead of a focus on category-specific spending on items that can include special education or at-risk student support.
“A lot of times, the categoricals have dispersed this money -- Hundreds of millions of dollars -- away from the classroom, and it always went to the most sophisticated districts with the best grant writers,” Kelly said.
House Democrats have been criticizing Republicans for waiting weeks longer than usual to unveil their budget proposal. Typically, at this point in the year, both chambers have already sent one another their own budget plans for review.
That’s so lawmakers can hit a July 1 statutory deadline for passing a new state budget.
Representative Regina Weiss (D-Oak Park) said the secrecy around this year’s budget proposal could mean school districts may have to cut back on either staff or services like free lunches to deal with the uncertainty.
“If we don’t have a budget passed before kids are back in seats, districts are having to make really difficult decisions about how they’re spending their dollars. Our fiscal year ends on September 30, but kids are back in school in mid-August,” Weiss said during a press conference Tuesday.
In response to what, at the start of the day, looked like a lack of an announced proposal from the Republicans who control the state House, House Democrats announced their own School Aid Budget proposal. That proposal would give schools $11,400 in base-level funding per student.
Representative Alabas Farhat (D-Dearborn) is minority vice chair of the House Appropriations Committee, putting him at the fore of the Democrats' efforts to craft their proposal.
“What we're doing today is we're building to the negotiation. The Republicans, I haven't seen a plan this detailed,” Farhat said Tuesday.
Some highlights of the plan include $2.6 million in ongoing funding for special education and more than $1 billion for at-risk students, according to materials passed out at the press conference. Democrats say they’re also adding in $1.2 billion for school infrastructure grants and $500 million to reduce school class sizes.
Kelly said the Republican plan also includes funding for some of those items. But he poured cold water on the idea that a deal would get done in time for that July 1 deadline, echoing comments by House Speaker Matt Hall last month.
Kelly predicted lawmakers would pass an education budget first, then later turn to working on a larger, omnibus package to fund the rest of state government spending.
As far as how schools were planning for the lack of a budget plan, Kelly pointed to $10,025 per-student funding included in a stop-gap spending measure the House passed back in March. He said that gave schools at least some idea what minimum funding to expect.
“They do this. They’ve been building budgets probably for the last several weeks,” Kelly said.
