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Gov. Whitmer. File photo.
By Rob Alway, Editor-in-Chief
LANSING — On Wednesday, July 24, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed the second part of the state’s $82.5 billion state budget for next year. Among the items in the budget are free community college for high school graduates who graduated in 2023 and after. The community college deal comes at a cost, though. The budget passed both the House of Representatives and the Senate straight down party lines, 56-54 in the House and 28-18 in the Senate. No Republican voted in favor of it and no Democrat voted against it.
While free community college seems like a great deal, it comes at a cost. In order to pay for the free community college, the Democrats slashed $300 million out of the $325 million allocated to elementary and secondary public school safety and mental health services. Within the $325 million has been funding for school resource officers. Additional funding will come from a freeze in per-pupil funding for public schools along with borrowing funds from the teacher pension fund.
“To be honest, it’s very disappointing,” State Rep. Curt VanderWall (R-Ludington) said. “”The governor wanted to get money so she could provide free community college tuition,” VanderWall said. “This included cutting funding for public school safety and mental health services, freezing the per-pupil funding, and taking money out of the teachers’ pension fund.”
VanderWall said he has been speaking with superintendents in his district.
“Almost every one of the superintendents have said that this is going to cause major problems.
“We can’t continue to do stuff like this and think that we are going to improve the state’s education system. Michigan now ranks 37th out of 50 states. That’s a downgrade from 26 when Gov. Snyder was in office.
“I want kids to go to college but if there’s no ownership, no consequences then it doesn’t teach the value of such education.”
School superintendents in Mason and Oceana counties were not pleased with the budget.
“I don’t understand the logic behind making cuts of this magnitude in these two areas, especially given the status of the state budget,” said Mark Platt, superintendent of Hart Public School District. “At the moment, it will not have an immediate impact at Hart Public Schools, but I am concerned about a couple years down the road if this issue isn’t rectified. The decision to reduce funding in these areas is counter productive to the expectations placed on the schools by the state and the general public. Access to quality mental health is already a huge challenge and now the state slashes funding. It doesn’t make sense, but often times bad decisions do not make sense.
“The zero increase in per pupil funding is something I have only seen during the recession. Overall, I’m disgusted with the budget. It kinda reminds me of the ending of Christmas Vacation when Clark Griswold got a membership to the jelly of the month club.”
Jeff Mount, superintendent of Mason County Central Public Schools said he was equally dismayed.
“It was disappointing for the first time in many years to watch budgetary process unfold and the resulting final passage,” Mount said. “Not only was the per pupil foundation allowance held flat, we saw a decrease in the areas of school safety and student mental health; both areas of priorities we thought we shared with the legislature and Governor. We have seen this before when they play a shell game with surplus funds in one area (overfunded retirement healthcare) to take care of personal legislator and governor agendas. Keep in mind, the surplus funding over the years came at the expense of school staff and a payback from each district’s school aid funds.
“The state’s government reacted appropriately when it had the federal dollars flowing due to COVID to prioritize the mental health programs and services for our state’s children. In addition, it also responded to the need of improving school safety in the aftermath of shootings at Oxford and Michigan State University. We don’t forget about those kinds of events at the school level as we must continue to keep them both as priorities. So that means we will have to find other means within our already flat budget to maintain them this year and for years to come as there has not been a magical cure introduced in recent years to help with both of these societal ills.”
Mark Olmstead, superintendent of Shelby Public School District agreed with his colleagues that the impact won’t be felt immediately.
“Overall, Shelby Public Schools will continue working to maintain and improve upon the needed resources that best serve our students, especially in the areas of school safety and mental health,” Olmstead said. “Like others have commented, I do not forecast a significant impact on our mental health/school safety plans in Shelby for the upcoming school year.
“One of the biggest challenges with the new state budget for this upcoming school year is truly knowing and understanding the funding districts can expect. The rough logic that has been communicated is that the savings from MPSERS (Michigan Public School Employees Retirement System educator pension fund) will help to fill in the gaps created by reductions in school safety and mental health funding. However, the MPSERS savings likely will vary from district to district based on several factors and is not a long term source of savings at this point. How this approach to funding schools plays out will be important to monitor and adjust to.”
Both Mason County Sheriff Kim Cole and Oceana County Sheriff Craig Mast agree that the budget cuts may impact staffing of school resource officers.
“Mason County has worked tirelessly in providing school resource deputies to our area schools,” Cole said. “This has been, and must continue to be, a partnership between law enforcement, schools, teachers, the county board of commissioners, and the state. I am saddened to hear the state has made these cuts.
“Our SRO program in Mason County will continue for this school year, but if corrections are not made, there could be a negative impact on school safety moving forward. With this in mind, I have asked for a meeting with the county school superintendents the first week in August as we have to address this head-on and come up with a resolution.
“SRO’s in the schools are way more than a security presence. They are mentors to students, a sounding board for kids who struggle in a variety of ways (being bullied, etc.), and eyes and ears to help prevent violent acts before they ever get a chance to come to pass.“
Mast echoed Cole’s sentiments.
“I truly hope that these budget cuts do not affect our ability to keep our schools safe as that is our number one priority,” Mast said. “My intention is to keep deputies in schools as much as we can.”
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