Posted on 08/25/2015 9:26:53 AM PDT by MichCapCon
The August edition of the Ann Arbor Observer periodical weighed in on the contract dispute between the Ann Arbor school district and its teachers. It wrote that the school board was “asserting the union’s contract has to change to reflect new state laws and seemingly permanent funding cuts. ...”
Except, state revenue to the Ann Arbor school district increased a combined $23.5 million over the last four state budgets compared to the 2010-11 school year. Of that amount, $3.7 million would have been for educating a cumulative total of 408 extra students over those four years. The rest was from increases approved by the Legislature, some of it earmarked for things such as special education.
The Ann Arbor Observer is not the first media outlet to inaccurately report that school districts have experienced funding reductions, a myth perpetuated in 2014 by Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mark Schauer and eventually debunked by the mainstream media.
The Ann Arbor school district hasn’t experienced the full benefits of the extra state funding because much of the new money was used to pay for school employee retirement benefits. The district’s contributions to the Michigan Public School Employees' Retirement System rose from $17.6 million in 2012 to $25.7 million in 2014, a 46 percent increase in two years.
School board member Christine Stead said the increasing burden of funding pensions is an important factor in why district officials feel like funding has been cut even though revenues actually rose.
Stead used the state’s foundation allowance grants for her comparisons, which in general account for 85 percent of a school district’s state funding. The payments to MPSERS as well as special education dollars are not included in the foundation allowance.
Stead said, “If the foundation allowance for the AAPS had merely kept pace with inflation since Proposal A was enacted (in 1994), we would have had $58 million more in revenue last year alone.” The Ann Arbor district’s total state revenue last year was $98.6 million.
"The burden of MPSERS and other costs (health care, inflation, etc.) affect all local school districts," Stead continued. "While the state allocation in overall school-related expenses has gone up, what has effectively gone down is what we are able to contribute to our classroom settings. This is where there is an increasing gap in our funding reality."
Stead says that understanding the district’s funding situation requires looking at how the rising pension burden erodes current funding.
Stead has done what many other school leaders have not, which is to support solving the problem of underfunded pensions by shifting new school employees to 401(k)-style retirement accounts, which by their nature, cannot be underfunded year after year.
When politicians deal with anything to do with children/ schools, expect them to lie.
Only in a political hacks mind does a 3 million dollar increase become a “cut” because they “wanted” a 4 million dollar increase......
In politician-speak, “seemingly permanent funding cuts” means that they aren’t sure that the rate of growth of spending will continue on in the future.
The best thing that could ever happen would be a severe cut of funds for public schools.
It would be the only way to do away with classes that have nothing to do with actual educating and place the emphasis back on the basic courses that really mean something for the society as a whole.
Sports....out! Environmentalism.....out! Racial studies....out! and so on and so on. Teach the basics!
The next step would be to only build schools that are not the pride of the town in their beauty and artistic wonders and also cost the citizens a huge amount in taxes.
Believe me....it works.....it did for my generation and it will for future generations...and mine made the world what it is today.
College and technical schools were originally designed to give advanced studies while High School was designed to teach BASIC topics and skills.
I’ve had it with my property taxes that comprise 80% school taxes....and we get very little from it.
Keep bringing in illegals and building new schools for them. Yeah, that’s the ticket to keeping school costs low.
Another out of the box thinking would be to eliminate half the teachers, aides and admin. Go back to one teacher and 35-40 students per classroom. Kid misbehaves or doesn’t do his work, then to d-hall or the principal’s office for consequences. Tell the coach he doesn’t need a new professional multi-million dollar football or baseball field. No new sports uniforms every year. No new textbooks every year. Go back to teaching the 3 Rs and eliminate the feel good electives.
I've ranted many times how our property taxes went from 2 weeks of income to over 3 MONTHS of income. Hey, gotta pay for the new overly fancy football stadium and baseball field. Gotta double the number of schools for all the illegals. Gotta give free breakfasts for everyone over and above the free lunches for the supposed "poor". Gotta reduce the class size to 14-17 students and have an aide for every teacher plus extra aides for the growing number of special snowflakes. Ridiculous.
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