Leaders critical of school funding plan

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) - Gov. Rick Snyder's budget proposal, presented Thursday, included an increase in school funding -- but there are strings attached to the money being offered.

It's not unusual that education funding draws a lot of attention and a lot of criticism. What is unusual is that the conversation isn't about how much to cut from school funding -- it's how to divvy up a surplus.

The budget plan offered a 1% funding increase to K-12 schools. In the governor's budget proposal, starting this fiscal year, $12.5 million will be added to early education programs. In the next fiscal year, $115 million will head that way as well.

But the plan is drawing some criticism from West Michigan school leaders, who said that they don't see the governor's plan as an increase -- and some criticize the idea that some of the money for schools will be tied to performance benchmarks.

Many of the governors increases have strings attached to schools demonstrating what he calls best practices, which include online learning, advance placement and dual enrollment offerings, as well as academic achievement growth.

"Just using incentives is one thing and certainly something we're going to look at," said GRPS spokesman John Helmholdt. "But there are also long term systemic issues within the funding formula itself that are not apparently addressed with what the governor's proposed."

Others said the money isn't really extra at all.

"It's not like it's an increase," said Rockford Superintendent Mike Schibler. "I guess it's all in how you spin it. We're still below funding levels that we were at four years ago."

Matthew Lewis, the finance director of Wyoming Public Schools, agreed.

"Even if districts qualified for every single dollar, it wouldn't quite replace what's falling off the books already," said  Lewis. "So it's not so much an increase as it is not as big a cut as we'd anticipated for the year."

Democrats like State Rep. Kate Segal of Calhoun County took aim at the plan.

"It is our responsibility to properly educate all of our children," Segal said. "Not just the governor's chosen few."

But the governor defended his budget, saying that he's focused on student performance.

"The big difference I would say from prior years is it's focused on student growth, where we're giving incentives to show good results," Snyder told 24 Hour News 8. "Too much of our system is about spending money and not enough on making sure the kids get a great education."

The plan also provided increases for public universities and community colleges, but the increases there tied to school performance and require that universities keep the tuition increase below 4%.