The Dexter Leader
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
Republican proposal would be 'major hit'
By Terry Jacoby, Heritage Newspapers
PUBLISHED: March 29, 2007
While the Republican-led Senate rejected Gov. Jennifer Granholm's plan for a 2-percent sales tax on services, the governor fired right back on Friday saying she would never approve of the Senate's budget-cutting plan that would trim $377 million from the School Aid Fund and $255 million from the state general fund.
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Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle say the end result will be a combination of cuts and some kind of revenue enhancement plan.
School officials in both Chelsea and Dexter were glad to see the governor quickly dismiss cutting $377 million from the schools. The Senate Republican plan called for reducing funding to public schools by $34 per pupil from its current $7,085 minimum per student. The Republicans argued that the $34 is much less than other previous numbers recommended and that most districts have enough revenue to deal with the reduction without the cuts reaching the classrooms.
But school officials in both Chelsea and Dexter believe any cut at this point of the year would be a "major hit."
"A $34 per student cut for Chelsea would be about a $95,000 hit," said Teresa A. Zigman, executive director of business and operations for the Chelsea School District. "What concerns me is that from what I have read so far it sounds like the $34 per student is just one part of the equation. There is a $377 million cut required and the $34 per student only reflects $54 million of that total cut. I haven't seen anything yet on where the rest is coming from."
Zigman says the timing of the cut would be the biggest problem for most school districts.
"Any hit we take this year is a major hit because we are almost three quarters of the way through the school year and there no longer is an option to actually put a plan in place to offset this loss," she said. "Right now Chelsea has adopted a budget that has us about break-even and we have a great staff that focuses on the needs of the building, so we usually have budget funds returned to us at the end of the year."
Zigman admits that, depending on a few variables including utility costs, the district could have enough to offset the hit without eliminating any programs. "But only time will tell," she said. "Planning is basically thrown out the window and we are looking for some luck now."
Chelsea had a general fund balance of $4,573,152 last school year and general expenditures of $25,667,773 for its 2,799 students.
Evelynn Shirk, superintendent for Dexter Community Schools, agrees that the proposed cuts would cause serious problems for most school districts. She said the proposal was a "call to action."
"Any money taken away mid-year is a problem," she said. "Because the school year is almost over, the money will probably come from reserves. This is a call to action. We must all contact our legislators and let them know that they need to fix the structural problem which exists in school funding.
"If education really is a top priority, it needs to be provided adequate and stable funding."
A $34 cut in Dexter's budget in 2006-07 would translate into a $121,000 cut this school year for the district's 3,596 students, according to Sharon Raschke, executive director of finance and business for Dexter Community Schools.
"That would be retroactive to the entire 06-07 fiscal year that started July 1, 2006," she said. "Any amount of proration is a cut for a budget that began eight months ago."
State Rep. Pam Byrnes (D-District 52) said the Republican's plan would have drastically hurt Michigan schools.
"It's just not realistic," she said. "It would have hurt our cities, our schools and our public safety. The cuts would have been devastating."
The plan would have meant a $4 million hit for Detroit schools and a $568,884 hit for Ann Arbor schools.
Granholm and the Legislature are close to an agreement on trimming only the first $310 million of the $940 million needed to be cut from the current fiscal year budget.
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