Millage for survival? (School Millage, Headlee Override Taxes on ballot May 3rd, Livingston County)

Ann Arbor News ^ | 3-25-05 | Lisa Carolin

[Dan from Michigan]

Millage for survival?
Districts' officials say they are trying to buy time for revamping of school funding
Friday, March 25, 2005
BY LISA CAROLIN
News Staff Reporter

Officially, the 3-mill school tax levy that Livingston County voters will decide May 3 is called an enhancement millage. If approved, an additional $19.767 million will be spread among the county's five public school districts to help pay for operations.

But school officials call it a survival millage. They argue that the three-year levy will allow the current educational program to survive another three years. They hope that will be long enough for the state Legislature to revamp the way schools are funded throughout the state.

If it fails, substantial cuts are being prepared in all districts. Some school boards will vote on the cuts before the May 3 election.

Livingston County is the first county in the state to seek approval for such a millage. The Monroe Intermediate School District successfully passed enhancement millages in 1997 and 2001, but those levies were marked specifically for technology, not general operational expenses.

For the last three years, all five of the county's districts have made budget cuts in response to continued reductions in school funding from the state. A weak economy in Michigan that has been slow to rebound is a major reason for the cuts.

The school boards in four of the county's five districts - Brighton, Hartland, Howell, Pinckney - voted to put the millage on the ballot. Only the Fowlerville board decided not to vote on the issue, citing the tax burden on residents from other recent increases.

Sally Vaughn, superintendent of the Livingston Educational Service Agency, says, "The local school districts in Livingston County are some of the best in the state, and I would hate to see them dismantle quality programs. The millage is a temporary solution. We need to insist that the state fix structural problems of school funding."

Hartland Consolidated School District administrators led the county in support for an enhancement millage.

"We knew the school funding problem in Livingston County was coming," says Hartland Superintendent Janet Sifferman. "Proposal A took a snapshot of how we looked in 1993-94 and our county looked a whole lot different then. It is not an equitable finance system in this county."

Sifferman is one of many school administrators regularly going to Lansing to meet with legislators to talk about school funding.

While teachers and school officials have rallied behind the millage, not everyone is sold on the idea. Some taxpayers have formed groups to oppose the millage request.

Bill Johnston, a resident of Cohoctah Township, heads the Concerned Taxpayers Group, a nonpartisan group that is against the millage. There are now close to 115 members representing all of the school districts in Livingston County, he says.

"We're opposed to this millage because it's just another tax that will be a burden on our families, our businesses and our schools, and hurt our economic growth," says Johnston. "The people in our group resent that they have to pay more and more of their own health care costs while employees and teachers in the school districts don't want to carry the burden at all. We're in hard times and they should be absorbing the costs for health care and not getting pay raises."

In a statement, Lu Battaglieri, president of the Michigan Education Association says, "The rhetoric in Lansing is that Michigan's school funding problems would go away if school employees would just sacrifice more. We have sacrificed, and the problems are still with us. Blaming school employees for the crisis shows a genuine lack of respect for the facts."

Barry Goode, president of the Brighton Education Association and a counselor at Brighton High School, said that the quality of teachers' insurance coverage has been reduced, and deductibles have increased 100 percent since the advent of Proposal A. He says that prescription co-pays have gone up 1,000 percent, and pay raises have been at or below the cost of living.

"The BEA supports the millage simply because it is the only option open to Brighton Schools and students in the short term," says Goode. "We feel that the state should adequately fund education for our kids ..."

Ken Moilanen, a member of the Concerned Taxpayers Group, has lived in Brighton since 1979 and his children graduated from Brighton High School.

"Over 85 percent of the school districts' budgets are spent on salaries and benefits. Asking taxpayers to be the only ones to bear the burden is disingenuous. The schools have gradually overspent and now that the economy has taken a downturn, they're running to the taxpayers for revenues. Even after three years, the problem isn't going to go away. There's still going to be a funding shortfall. We've got to do more than put Band-Aids on this. We need a long-term solution."

Brighton Superintendent Dave Pruneau agrees there needs to be a long-term solution.

"The enhancement millage is not something that I recommended easily because I know in these economic times people are having tough times at home. Unfortunately, the state of Michigan has not kept it's contract with us to support us in education.

"We still have the mandates and expectations without the funding they promised us. Because the legislature and state work so slowly, I know we're not going to see a solution for Livingston County this year. This county has been the minimum funded county in the state for the last 10 years. We're on the cutting edge of this unfortunate cliff that we find ourselves on, and we're at the point where we're going to get shoved off unless we get some sort of stopgap measure over the next three years."

Marcia Jablonski, president of the Pinckney school board, believes that it's up to the residents of the county to decide what kind of schools they want.

"The state has put us in a very difficult situation," she says. "It has a constitutional responsibility to fund schools. Our hope is that the Legislature and governor collectively wake up to the depth of the problem. We'll be out of business in three years with or without the enhancement millage if the state doesn't solve the problem. Without the enhancement millage, we'll be closing a whole lot sooner."

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Schools seeking Headlee override

Issue is on the ballots for voters in Fowlerville, Pinckney

Friday, March 25, 2005
BY LEANNE SMITH
News Staff Reporter
Residents in three Livingston County school districts will be asked to vote May 3 on millage requests related to nonhomestead property taxes.

Fowlerville and Pinckney ballots feature proposals seeking the override of a Headlee Amendment rollback on nonhomestead property rates, while Hartland is asking voters to renew the maximum 18 mills it's allowed to levy on nonhomestead property under Proposal A.

Nonhomestead property includes industrial and commercial property, some agricultural land and second or vacation homes. It does not include principal residences or qualified agricultural property.

Officials in all three school districts want voters to know that saying yes to these proposals will not increase their revenues, but does allow them to maintain their current level of state funding.

A portion of the districts' state per-pupil funding comes from nonhomestead property taxes. If a district does not levy a full 18 mills on this property, it is subject to a reduction in that funding. Fowlerville and Pinckney receive $6,700 per student, while Hartland receives $6,815.

The district that stands to lose the most if its proposal is voted down is Hartland, which would suffer an additional $4 million deficit on top of the $2.5 million 2005-06 shortfall it already expects, said Scott Bacon, assistant superintendent for business and operations.

"Typically, these renewals haven't been an issue before, but if people don't understand it, they could easily vote no and we'd be up to having to make $6.5 million in cuts," he said.

Hartland would be able to levy the full 18 mills this year, but that is subject to a Headlee Amendment rollback if nonhomestead property assessments increase faster than the rate of inflation next year.

Adopted by voters in 1978, the Headlee Amendment does not allow nonhomestead property assessments to increase faster than the rate of inflation.

That is what causes school districts to ask voters for an override, which is what Fowlerville and Pinckney are doing in May. The overrides allow the districts to levy enough money to offset the rollback and collect a full 18 mills on nonhomestead property.

"It protects our district," said Ed Alverson, Fowlerville superintendent. "Without the override, we could lose about $44,000 in revenue this year."

The override would allow Fowlerville to levy up to 1.75 mills each year from 2005-08 to offset Headlee Amendment rollbacks.

Pinckney's override would allow it to levy up to 2 mills annually from 2005-09. Without it, the district stands to lose about $200,000 this year, said Linda Moskalik, assistant superintendent of finance and operations.

Both districts would levy only the portion of the override millage needed per year - if there is any - to restore any reduction to its full 18-mill nonhomestead property tax levy.

[Dan from Michigan]

I posted both articles since they are similar. I'm the treasurer of the Concerned Taxpayers Group which was created to oppose this millage. We're going to run a campaign to defeat this.

Unlike most property tax millages, this one is for the five school districts based in Livingston County. Brighton, Hartland, Fowlerville, Pinckney, and Howell. I do not believe that this effects those in Livingston County who are in districts based outside the county. (South Lyon, Fenton, Linden, Stockbridge, Whitmore Lake)

The headlee overrides are in the Pinckney and Fowlerville school districts. Those are also tax increases for non homesteads. We all pay for those in price increases.

What irks me the most about this election outside the taxes is that this is in May. They had the option at NO CHARGE to have this election in AUGUST or NOVEMBER. They are choosing to have this election in May since they don't want a high turnout. It's costing us $100,000 instead.

So if you are in one of these districts, please vote May 3rd. If you are not in this district, be alert for these millages in your area.