This morning, the House Subcommittee on School Aid released its version of the 2017-18 School Aid Budget. We expect to see more activity on the budget this week, including the possibility that the Senate will also release their version in the next day or two.  This follows a recent trend over the past couple of years - the Governor, House and Senate all release their versions of the bill before the legislature breaks for spring recess.

House Subcommittee on School Aid Proposed Budget

The proposed budget from the House subcommittee looks quite different from the Governor’s plan in that their version reverses many of the changes the Governor proposed in his plan.

Here are some of the priorities of the House plan:

• Foundation Increase of $100 per pupil across the board for all districts
• Expands and increases At-Risk funding by $129 million with newly eligible districts capped at 50% of their total before any proration
• Maintains Cyber School and Shared Time Instruction funding at current levels
• No funding for High School Bonus of $50 per pupil
• No funding for Declining Enrollment
• No funding for Partnership Model Districts
• No funding for Educator Evaluations
• Maintains current funding for Financial Data Analysis Tools
• Maintains current funding for Non-Public School Reimbursement and adds $250,000 for FIRST Robotics
• Adds language to 31a for a Transportation Reimbursement/Voucher for out-of-district students
• Adds language preventing the use of State funds for any expenses relating to legal action against the State
• Adds language of a 5% penalty for any collective bargaining agreement that does any of the following:
• Establishes racial and religious preferences for employees
• Automatically deducts union dues from employee compensation
• In conflict with any State or Federal law regarding transparency
• Includes a method of compensation that does not comply with the requirements of section 1250 of the Revised School Code, MCL 380.1250

Please see the reports posted on our webpage dedicated to the 2017-18 School Aid Budget which give greater detail including a district-by-district breakdown. We expect that the Senate Subcommittee will be releasing their budget proposal soon... so there will be more to come! 

We will be putting together a more detailed review of the differences in the three proposals in the coming days and we will continue to update the webpage as we receive new information.

David and Bob