Some leaders of rural Michigan schools are worried that a state budget proposal passed by the Michigan House could make it harder to pay for school buses.
Coby Fletcher, superintendent of Escanaba Area Public Schools in the Upper Peninsula, said his district has 15 buses that run hundreds of thousands of miles each year. Last year, Fletcher said, the district received about $266,000 in designated transportation funding from the state – the equivalent cost of four new teachers, he said.
Under the proposed plan from the Republican-led House, Escanaba, like every district in the state, would no longer receive money specifically designated for transportation. Districts’ base per-pupil funding would go up, according to the nonpartisan House Fiscal Agency’s analysis, but many specifics about where the money would be applied would be eliminated.
The elimination of designated transportation funding is a complicated issue that Fletcher said would run headlong into issues of educational equity: Rural districts like his that are heavily dependent on busing to get students to and from school would need to spend comparatively more of their funding on transportation, while wealthier urban and suburban districts that are less reliant on busing could put more toward classroom instruction.
“Even though we're all getting the same amount of money, times however many pupils that we have, I am now going to have to use a bigger piece of that than somebody else will to pay for my transportation costs when I would have previously received money above and beyond that to help offset my transportation costs,” Fletcher said.
The funding directed to transportation is one of the “categorical grants” targeted by the House-approved budget proposal.
Michigan uses those grants – 128 of them in the last budget – to direct some funding for K-12 schools to specific applications, like tutors, free lunches, and transportation.
The House budget would roll that money into the general purpose per-pupil funding that schools get from the state. Republican supporters have said that would empower local districts “to invest in what matters most for their students.” Democrats have said it risks districts cutting funding for important programs.
Craig Thiel, the research director at the Citizens Research Council of Michigan, said the House’s proposed budget generally provides greater flexibility. But the elimination of specific funding streams would mean “programs and services funded by those streams will now have to ‘compete’ for resources with other programs and services.”
In Traverse City Area Public Schools, which serves parts of three largely rural counties, Superintendent John VanWagoner said his roughly 8,700 students rely on buses. He said he budgets about $6 million a year for transportation costs, and last year, the transportation categorical covered about $1 million of it.
Under the House’s proposal, the district would receive more total money than last year. But that’s not necessarily a favorable equation, VanWagoner said. “It’s a question of fairness.”
“Here's the problem,” VanWagoner said: “What about the district that's wealthy and has no poor kids and doesn't provide transportation? What do they do with their money?”
Representative Tim Kelly (R-Saginaw Township), who chairs the House Appropriations Subcommittee on School Aid and the Department of Education, said his party’s budget proposal lets local districts allocate their money to the areas that have the greatest need.
Kelly said those who complain about eliminating categorical funding are looking for a scapegoat. “They like Lansing to make the decisions for them so they can then blame us when something doesn't work,” he said.
The idea that local school officials ought to welcome the increased funding and flexibility of the Republican proposal was echoed by Molly Macek, the director of education policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a libertarian think tank.
Macek said a lot of the concern surrounding the House’s proposal boils down to the uncertainty. While the Senate’s proposal largely continues the format of recent budget proposals, the House budget is “trying something different,” Macek said.
“I don't really understand why” some districts would be “upset over it or why they would have concerns because they would be receiving more funding, and the main difference is the level of flexibility that they have in how they use that funding,” Macek said. “So it should be a win for districts in that they are able to have greater say in how that funding is used to support the unique needs of their student population.”
VanWagoner agreed that the number of categorical grants is “absurd.”
“I agree with the House Republicans on that, 100%,” VanWagoner said. “I think you could get down to 20 and address the inequities across the state.”
It’s still not clear when – or even whether – the Republican plan can move toward law. There are three distinct proposals on the table.
The Republican-led House proposed a $21.9 billion school aid budget with fewer categorical grants but higher per-pupil funding, compared to Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s proposed $21.2 billion and the Democratic-led Senate’s proposed $21.8 billion.
The stakes are high: The school year has already begun without districts knowing how much funding they can expect from the state, and some might soon need to take out loans to cover their costs. The budget deadline is October 1.
Both Fletcher and VanWagoner said they want to keep buses running with whatever funding they receive.
Michigan school districts aren’t required to provide most students with transportation.
But Fletcher said he’s prepared to cut back on classroom services to compensate and keep transportation funded.
Escanaba schools currently have a social worker on each campus, Fletcher said, but he expects maintaining that is unlikely if it means students are left without a way to school.
“It's a little bit like having a balloon that's tied at both ends,” Fletcher said. “If you want to inflate it somewhere, you've got to squeeze it somewhere else.”
