LANSING -- School districts will lay off more teachers, reduce bus service and trim support for sports next academic year unless Michigan shores up its education funding system, an advocacy group said Monday.
A coalition of education groups called Save our Students, Schools and State says schools would be forced to make their deepest cuts yet if the Legislature does not avoid further education funding cuts.
"It's not a little local problem here," Traverse City Area Public Schools board member Fred Tank said. "It's so obviously a problem for all of Michigan."
Schools need more state support now since financial trouble is so widespread, he said.
The coalition supports several changes, including Gov. Jennifer Granholm's proposal to reduce the state sales tax from 6 percent to 5.5 percent and expand it to dozens of consumer services that currently aren't taxed, raising roughly $550 million for schools next fiscal year and keeping per-student funding level.
The proposal for the budget year starting Oct. 1 has been bogged down in the Legislature, where neither Republicans nor Democrats are embracing tax increase proposals in a critical election year.
Michigan cut school funding by a minimum of $165 per student this academic year, a 2-percent reduction for districts at the bottom end of the state's funding spectrum. Schools could face cuts of more than $225 per student next fiscal year, based on the projected deficit in the state's school aid fund.
A Michigan School Business Officials survey of more than 300 districts found that 86 percent of the state's public school districts expect to have layoffs in the coming year, based on a projected per-student funding reduction of $268. The group says almost 4,000 school employees could be laid off next fiscal year on top of an estimated 3,000 teachers, administrators and support staff laid off this year.
Nearly half of responding school districts said they planned to eliminate or reduce their general fund support for athletics. More than half the districts said they would cut back on field trips, and nearly half said they could reduce or eliminate transportation for students.
The TCAPS board last month voted to cut $75,000 from athletics next year, cut $500,000 from transportation and move special education busing out of the district.
Extending sales tax to services would not close the gap between the state's richest and poorest districts, Superintendent James Feil said. TCAPS is among the lowest-funded.
"I'm viewing this in a much different lens than what many school districts downstate would be doing," Feil said. "I'm seeing inequity. I'm not seeing where this extra revenue will help without addressing equity."
Record-Eagle reporter Lindsay VanHulle contributed to this report.
