Yes, the fact that Midland Public Schools lost over $1.5 million in school safety and mental health grants that were supposed to go toward counselors, school resource officers, and safety technology as part of a nearly $300 million statewide cut is gross! This is extremely bad policy that is hurting our students.
As the school aid budget made its way through the Legislature to the governor’s desk, the bipartisan House Fiscal Agency examined the grants’ impact on school districts and middle school districts down to the dollar.
When I heard about these cuts, I called Rep. Schuette’s office and asked the House Fiscal Agency for the numbers. You don’t have to have accounting knowledge like I do to realize that these cuts are bad. They are bad for our schools and bad for our children. Midland Public Schools is not the only district affected by these cuts. Other school districts will also see cuts, including Bullock Creek ($355,655), Hemlock ($259,297), Coleman ($127,042) and others.
Rep. Schuette has always been open and transparent and promptly provided me with the House Fiscal Agency document upon request. I am sure his office would be happy to provide the same document to anyone who wants to know how much money their school lost.
One cannot take Rep. Schuette’s word for it alone, given how incredibly unpopular these changes are. There has been tremendous public opposition from school officials across the state to these cuts.
In addition to these ridiculous cuts, the per-pupil grant, which makes up the bulk of our schools’ funding, has not been increased for the first time in years and remains at $9,608 statewide, according to the House Budget Office. This level of stagnation in school funding is unacceptable.
In his column, Rep. Schuette also expressed his disappointment with the use of taxpayer dollars for drones and WiFi. I don’t think he’s saying that state money should never be invested in this way, but the priorities in the budget are completely wrong. Here in the City of Midland, we still need to raise tens of millions of dollars for flood preparedness, and just upstream, the Four Lakes Task Force needs all the help it can get to restore the dams and restore water to our lakes. I share his frustration with these misplaced priorities, especially given that Rep. Schuette introduced an amendment to the EGLE budget that would have diverted $50 million right here to Midland and Gladwin counties to meet this need, but it was voted down by his Democratic colleagues.
Our region is not the only one facing these problems. Last year, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave Michigan a “C-” grade for its dams. The governor has made infrastructure a pillar of her agenda, and yet the budget drafted by the three Democrats decided to spend millions on far less important things.
The needs of Mid-Michigan and our students were ignored in this year’s budget process, and we need better. We deserve better.
