Ann Arbor News Reports on Equity in Funding
 

The following is from an article entitled "School officials continue fight for better funding" by Tom Tolen
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Despite a meeting of the minds in Lansing recently to address school funding equity, school officials in Livingston County said they think they and their counterparts around the state still have a long way to go before their voices are heard.

State Rep. Chris Ward, R-Genoa Township, arranged the meeting, along with Howell Public Schools Associate Superintendent for Business Rick Terres.

Representatives of school districts from Traverse City to the Plymouth-Canton, who believe they have been given the short shrift in per-pupil funding, were present. They are part of a group called Citizens for Equity (www.citizensforequity.org), formed to eliminate the funding imbalance.

A large number of districts - including Howell, Pinckney, Fowlerville and Whitmore Lake in the Livingston County area - are in a large group of districts getting the lowest funding of $7,204 per pupil. Brighton ($7,357) and Hartland ($7,317) get slightly more.

In contrast, Bloomfield Hills receives $12,268 in combined state and local funding per student. Birmingham gets $12,188 per student and Ann Arbor, $9,667.

Those amounts include a local millage - in Ann Arbor's case a 4.7-mill levy - that generates an extra $1,234 per student on top of the state per-pupil aid. What educators in Livingston County say is unfair is that these districts were exempted when Proposal A went into effect in 1994 to replace the local property tax as the primary method of funding public education. The result is they have local millages that augment state funding, whereas districts not exempted are not allowed to levy additional millages.

There is one exception, that being if all K-12 districts in a county unite to get approved a countywide "enhancement'' millage (limited to 3 mills). Such a proposal was tried in Livingston County, and failed, in 2005.

Many feel one fair way to eventually gain equal funding is the so-called "2X agreement'' which would give districts at the bottom a $216 per-pupil increase in the coming school year and those at the top, $108. That's the way it was done last year, when low-funded districts received a $96 increase and the upper echelon got $48. In fact, 2X is part of Gov. Jennifer Granholm's proposed state aid package for K-12 public education for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.

Ward is confident it will pass. "I think it will be in place for (the 2008-09) budget year, and we're trying to get it into the law permanently,'' he says.

The plan has been endorsed by the Howell Area Chamber of Commerce board.

"Quality schools are a key component of an exception community,'' Chamber President Pat Convery said in a press release announcing the vote.

But Terres says the higher-funded group, called the Tri-County Alliance for Public Education, has lobbyists working to defeat the 2X plan. "Their lobbyists are working to get that language out of the state aid bill, and we'll have to involve ourselves ... as well,'' he says.

Linda Moskalik, Pinckney Community Schools' assistant superintendent for finance and operations, isn't optimistic the 2X formula will be approved.

"We think it's wonderful, and we thank Chris Ward for stepping up to the plate, but we know the state doesn't have it,'' she says. Moskalik says Pinckney has been promised a large increase in state aid in the past, only to have those hopes dashed when a far lesser amount was finally approved.

Another meeting will be arranged on the issue, although no date has been set.