Playing chicken with our kids

We had hoped that the redrawn legislative districts would encourage moderation and compromise on education spending and policy issues. (See our article “Redrawing the Lines,” upcoming.) Evidently, we will need to keep waiting. So far, this year’s budget process consists of more posturing than governing, and there is no question that the costs of division and gamesmanship will continue to mount.

In one of their first acts upon retaking control of the state House of Representatives, Republican leaders revealed their intended governing style: confrontation. Last Thursday, the new House leadership abruptly moved to pass appropriations bills that cut state spending to the bare minimum. Designed to stake out their negotiating position with the Democratic Senate and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, the bills were rammed through in one day with no hearings and with no advance notice of the floor amendments which replaced the entire contents of the bills (HB 4161 on the general government budget, and HB 4162 on the education budget).

The spending cuts in the general government budget were the most dramatic: overall spending was cut by 92%. Only a handful of functions, presumably those favored by the House majority, were retained. The education budget was less stark but equally disruptive: total spending was cut by one third, with spending on community colleges and state universities entirely zeroed out. School aid (for K-12 education) was cut by almost 25%, leaving only spending on the foundation allowance, special education, retirement system payments, and mental health programs. Much of this spending is mandated by state or federal law or the Michigan Constitution.

Intended as a sweetener, the per-pupil foundation allowance was increased by 4.3%, from $9,608 to $10,025 (just a little bit more than the Governor’s proposal). Removed, however, was $1 billion in “at risk” (Section 31a) funding to support programs and services for low income students. Other items missing from the House budget include $630 million for Great Start Readiness Program preschool support, $200 million for universal school breakfast and lunch, $125 million to help rural districts with transportation costs, and some $62 million for literacy programs.

Taken as a whole, the House budget reduces spending on K-12 education by over $5 billion. The bill does manage to increase the per-pupil spending on fully online “cyber” charter schools by almost 10%, setting their foundation allowance equal to that of physical schools.

So is this what the House majority really wants our education spending to look like? That’s hard to tell. House leaders say that their budget represents an emergency backup should a deadlock on the budget threaten a state government shutdown when the new fiscal year begins on October 1st. Normally, without a Constitutionally-required balanced budget in place by the start of the fiscal year, the state is not authorized to spend any funds at all. However, the state government has seen protracted budget battles before, including notably the FY2010 budget finally passed on Halloween 2009. Lawmakers agreed on a (balanced) provisional budget that year, based on the previous year, giving them another 30 days to come to an agreement.

All this maneuvering does make it seem as though the only stopgap spending acceptable to the current House leadership would cover only skeleton government services. Since they have made no counter-proposal to the Governor’s recommended budget, we can only guess at what the House leadership would accept in a final education budget and how long it might take to come to agreement.

Local school districts must have their budgets in place by June 30th.