The source of the school budget quagmire
By Michael D. Van Beek
Of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy"
Scores of Michigan school districts are facing budget problems, and the blame is falling on this year’s “draconian” state school aid cuts and on Michigan’s “unpredictable” school funding system. Schools are now said to be underfunded.
But the record shows that Michigan’s schools have been generously financed for years. This suggests policymakers should stop focusing on school revenues and instead encourage schools to control their costs.
Michigan’s public school system has received increased revenues — even after adjusting for inflation — nearly every year since the state’s voters passed Proposal A, the constitutional amendment that guides Michigan’s school funding system. From 1995 until 2008, inflation-adjusted total revenue for Michigan schools grew by nearly one-third, according to data from the Center for Educational Performance and Information. With virtually the same number of pupils today as in 1995, per-pupil revenue rose accordingly. In constant 2008 dollars, Michigan schools on average received about $3,000 more per student in 2008 than they did in Proposal A’s first year.
Herein lies the lesson for policymakers and taxpayers: More revenue for schools won’t necessarily stabilize their budgets.
Still, some point to recent revenue declines in the state school aid fund — the schools’ primary source of income, and the repository of taxes from Proposal A — and call for an overhaul of Michigan’s school funding system. This argument, too, is questionable: The school aid fund has grown 18 percent above inflation since 1995.