Lansing is running up against its own deadline to complete the state’s annual education budget — with little to show for it so far.
That self-imposed deadline is Tuesday. But the proposed budgets passed by the Republican-led House and Democratic-led Senate are extremely different.
The House version would raise the yearly per-pupil allocation, but drastically cut so-called “categorical funds” — designated money for areas such as special education, at-risk students, and English language learners. It would also pull from a rainy day fund to support those increases, and eliminate the state’s current universal free school lunch program, leaving it up to districts to decide whether they can fund that program or not.
The Senate version is a more traditional education budget. It has a more modest per-pupil increase, but retains those designated funding categories.
Robert McCann, who leads the K-12 Alliance of Michigan, said there are potential benefits to both approaches, though he expressed concern about slashing categorical funds. But from the viewpoint of school leaders, he said, the bigger problem is that there appears to have been little negotiation — and even less communication — about a potential compromise budget.
McCann said this is a problem for school districts, who have already had to craft their own annual budgets without the usual cues from Lansing about what to expect.
“That is really the biggest problem that we have had, is that as school boards have had to pass budgets already for the upcoming year, they really have had very little information to even work from of what a final budget is going to look like,” McCann said.
“The fact that there have been little to no negotiations to find where they agree on these things, and what a final budget could look like, is deeply, deeply concerning.”
House Republican leaders say their proposal “reimagines how Michigan invests in its students, shifting control away from Lansing and giving more decision-making power to local schools and families.” In this sense, it reflects how President Donald Trump’s administration has approached education funding on the federal level.
“This budget represents a major shift in how we approach education in Michigan,” said Representative Ann Bollin (R-Brighton Township), chair of the House Appropriations committee, in a statement earlier this month. “We’re building a stronger model by putting trust where it belongs — in the hands of local school boards, parents, and educators who know their communities best. Every district is different, and the people closest to the students should be the ones making the decisions.”
Senate Democrats, on the other hand, lambasted the House proposal, saying it would take the state backwards after important strides made in the last several years to restore investment in public education after more than a decade of cuts.
“How does this budget make sense?” Senator Dayna Polehanki (D-Livonia) said on the Senate floor earlier this month. “How does this budget improve academics or school safety, or mental and physical health?”
Both chambers are expected to be in session this week, but it remains unclear how — and how quickly — they can agree to a comprehensive education budget. There is no penalty for missing the July 1 deadline, which the Legislature changed on its own several years ago in an effort to bring its own budget process more in line with that of school districts.
