Gov. cuts cash for top-spending schools

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) - In signing the budget Monday that funds K-12 schools throughout the state, Gov. Jennifer Granholm vetoed $54 million in spending she said was necessary to balance the budget.

The vast majority of the cut, $51.5 million, comes from payments to the state's top-funded school districts. Many of the school systems, known as "hold harmless" districts, are in suburban Detroit -- but Saugatuck Public Schools is one of them.

The lakeshore district, already spending an extra $15,000 in loan interest payments after voters initially rejected renewal of its operating millage, is slated to lose $240,900 midway through its school year because of the veto.

"It's ridiculous," Superintendent Rolfe Timmerman said of this year's budget process. "It's embarrassing for our state. It seems like a bunch of adults acting like kids."

Saugatuck Public Schools receives about $8,800 to educate each student in the district, roughly $1,000 more than most districts in West Michigan. It and the other "hold harmless" districts are allowed to spend beyond the state's per-student foundation allowance because when Proposal A was passed in the 1990s, they spent more per student than the funding base Proposal A created.

Under the budget bill the governor signed, all districts around the state would see a mid-year cut of roughly $165 per student. That means millions in mid-year cuts for schools around West Michigan.

A state Senate budget proposal would have cut $210 per student, but lawmakers in the House and Senate passed a K-12 spending bill that reduced that cut to the $165 figure.

Trouble is, neither the House nor Senate passed any additional funding to cover the new cost. Granholm has said she wanted to see the state raise additional revenues to fund K-12 education.

In a statement Monday, the governor said her veto was necessary because "in simple terms, if the school aid bill were a check drawn on a bank, it would be returned for insufficient funds."

A further mid-year school funding cut could be necessary, Granholm warned, if lawmakers do not provide additional revenue for schools. The tax revenues that fund the schools are expected to be lower than predicted in May.