Michigan governor slashes $54 million more from school funding

[Hannah Bell]

Michigan Governor Jennnifer Granholm on Monday vetoed $54 million more from public school funding in a bid to help meet the state’s $2 billion budget deficit. The cut comes on top of a $165-per-student cut enacted in a temporary budget passed earlier in the month, which is now effective for the year.

The additional cuts would affect 39 school districts in the state, 26 of them grouped in the three southeastern Michigan counties of Oakland, Macomb, and Wayne, around metropolitan Detroit.

The districts were targeted for additional cuts due to a special exemption that had previously allowed them to spend more per student than other schools in the state because of their relatively large property tax bases. These are hardly “rich” school districts. Most of them are in largely working class suburbs of Detroit that have already been devastated by the Obama administration’s forced bankruptcy of the US auto industry.

The Detroit suburbs of Livonia and Dearborn would each lose $4.9 million in funding if Granholm’s veto holds. Wayne County would see 10 districts lose money. The Detroit public school system, already in a state of collapse, would not suffer additional cuts.

Granholm claims she vetoed the funding in order to force lawmakers to come up with additional forms of revenue to meet the budget deficit. But there is little chance the funding will be restored. “Those lines the governor vetoed will simply be unfunded,” a spokesman for Republican Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop said. “If the governor wants to veto parts of this budget, we will not refund them.

“We feel totally abandoned.... It puts us in an almost impossible position,” said Tim McAvoy, a spokesman for the Troy public schools, noting that the school district must now cut an additional $3 million on top of $2 million in cuts it must put in place resulting from the state’s per-pupil funding cuts, and having already slashed $7 million from its budget this year. “To slash these funds when we are well into our fiscal year is unconscionable. It puts us an extremely difficult position.”

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/oct2009/mich-o21.shtml

[Zoeisright]

1. Way to dumb down the population.

[OHdem10]

2. How very sad. Michigan is already in a Great Depression with

unemployment at 23-25%.

[marmar]

11. Where'd you get that stat?

[JNelson6563]

3. Oh those poor districts!

Gosh, if my math is correct, they might almost have to deal with the lowest funding level allowed by law like the rest of the districts in Michigan!!

Save your tears DUers. There are certain school districts, wealthier areas, that get almost twice the funding everyone else gets. This is merely making them live like the rest of us. Trust me, these schools have been living large for a long time while everyone else scraps and scrimps. NOW maybe school funding is something we can ALL agree is important. For years now many of us have been crying the blues while these guys basically tell us "tough shit". Now it would seem it's quite another story.

Fuck 'em.

Julie

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

7. Not in Detroit, which is in Wayne County

:shrug:

[JNelson6563]

8. In the article it said Detroit wouldn't be cut.

They're cutting the fattest districts, tho' they will still get more than the rest of us I believe.

Julie

[KharmaTrain]

4. Can't Make Money Appear That Isn't There....

Michigan's woes long predate the current auto coropration mess and when the boooosh depression hit, the state was poorly set to handle all that hit it. As thousands of jobs were being outsourced to Mexico and other points, this meant less people working and less taxes being collected. The ripple affect was people who don't have livlihoods aren't going to spend much thus retail taxes dry up (except for the sale of lottery tickets). Then the credit crunch hit...foreclosure have hit hard and depressed real estate values that not only wiped out many family's "nest eggs" but also meant less in property taxes being collected. Thus, the auto industry that helped build Detroit and Michigan a century ago are now slowly destroying it.

So what's the solution? The state did get stimulus funds earlier this year...just imagine how worse things would have been without that injection, but the core problems remain and until there's a turn around in the state's business situation, this crisis will remain and get worse (unless there's another bailout). So do you ask these people to dig deeper and pay higher taxes? Take money from other areas like police or roads or healthcare? There's no easy fix here.

[Hannah Bell]

5. apparently you can if it's for banksters.

[Romulox]

6. But I thought the Obama admin "saved" us by forcing two of our biggest employers into bankruptcy

(while simultaneously funneling trillions to Wall Street to pay out in bonuses and to certain "foreign counterparties".)

What gives? :shrug:

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

10. Tell me, how exactly does the government "force" a company into bankruptcy? n/t

[Romulox]

12. No, I can't bring you up to speed as to the events of the past 6 months.

Try reading a newspaper. :hi:

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

9. "the Obama administration’s forced bankruptcy of the US auto industry."

You continue to have this very serious issue with saying things that simply are not true.

[Romulox]

13. Bizarre denial of reality. Link to the President's comments in which he explains why he forced BK

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-on-General-Motors-Restructuring/

:eyes:

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

14. Well, I suppose that's true if you completely ignore the fact...

...that injections of government money were the only thing propping them up from going bankrupt in the first place.

[Romulox]

15. Nobody is ignoring either that OR the fact that Obama propped up Wall Street with TRILLIONS more

Without forcing any significant restructuring whatever. Except perhaps you.

At least you're done denying recent history. :hi:

[SammyWinstonJack]

16. +1 nt