Superintendents seek state support with financial crisis

By CRISTINA TRAPANI-SCOTT

The Lenawee County Superintendents Association met Friday at the Lenawee Intermediate School District TECH Center for a press conference to discuss the state of educational finances in Lenawee County and let the public know that change is needed to keep schools viable. Superintendents from throughout the county attended, including Tecumseh Supt. Mike McAran, Britton-Macon Area School Supt. Chuck Pelham and Clinton Community Schools Supt. David Pray.

Adrian Public Schools Supt. Chris Timis opened the meeting by outlining the impact of job loss in the area on school funding. He noted that the trend in school funding has been that the gap between inflation and the amount of school funding received has widened since 2000, with inflation rising steadily as revenues have remained stagnant.

“What’s happened over the years is the dollars have decreased more and more,” he said.
Since the adoption of Proposal A in 1994, districts have relied on the state to carryout the funding of schools with revenue sources coming from state taxes, including income tax and sales tax. Prior to that, districts provided about 68 percent of their own funding through local property tax levies. As the economy has taken a nosedive, so have revenue sources that provide the basis of school funding. Timis showed that tax revenues dropped 19 percent for the 2008/2009 school year from the previous year and continued to drop another 9.9 percent for the current school year. He said that a 1.4 increase is expected for 2010/2011 but that doesn’t come near making up what’s already been lost. Similar drops were shown in almost all of the other revenue sources.

“It’s impacting local districts because all of our money comes from the state for the most part,” said Timis.

He noted the consistent drop in general fund contributions to schools since Proposal A took effect. According to findings from Michigan House Fiscal Agency, contributions to the school aid fund have dropped to 4.5 percent of the original post Proposal A contributions. Where $665 million in transfers were made 15 years ago, the school aid fund now receives $30.2 million in contributions.

Timis said that while school aid fund appropriations to schools have increased in the last 15 years, they haven not increased enough to keep up with the rate of inflation. The decrease in revenues and marginal increases in per pupil funding are compounded with the fact that student enrollment is declining throughout the state and in Lenawee County.
“When we look at how our costs increase, our funding and revenue streams aren’t matching and they haven’t matched. In 96 we are probably about as close as we could be and then it’s just chaos from there,” Timis said before turning the floor over to Madison Schools Supt. Jim Hartley who further detailed the decrease in enrollment in Lenawee County and reflected that against continually increasing operational costs, most specifically employee retirement.

“Since about 2003 we’ve been falling off the table with enrollment of students,” said Hartley. “Of course that’s very directly related to what’s happening with the economy in this area since 2003. So, you’ve got a two-pronged problem. You are getting less per student or at best you are being froze in the amount of students that you are being funded on, and the number or students in our county is dropping dramatically. Unfortunately, some of our expenses are not dropping dramatically.”

In addition, he showed how Lenawee County has been below the state average in revenues per pupil for more than 10 years.

“How do we compensate for that? Well, we don’t compensate for it by taking the money out of the classroom,” he said, adding that while Lenawee County has remained on average $900 lower than the state average on revenues, it has spent on average as much as $400 less than the state average on students. He also noted that the county has remained close to the state average in what it pays for supportive services and has been collaborating on services, including the Lenawee Intermediate School District TECH Center.
The Michigan School Business Officials recommends school districts carry a 15 to 20 percent in fund equity. Currently, in the districts within the county, Hartley said general fund equity ranges from a deficit of $195,898 to a balance of $3,336,215. This is at a time when schools in Michigan already have laid off staff, consolidated services, increased classes sizes and have frozen salaries and benefits for employees.

Mark Haag, superintendent of Onsted Schools, and Eileen Grant-Ball, superintendent of Addison Schools, listed a slew of measures Lenawee County Schools have already taken to cut costs that include such actions as privatizing services like transportation, which Tecumseh has done, and food service, which Clinton has done. Other measures include offering employees early retirements, reducing building administrators. As well, some Lenawee County schools have reduced or eliminated purchase of supplies that directly impact the students.

“The point of this press conference or meeting is not necessarily just to say that we need more funds, but we are showing that we’ve made significant efforts to do cost containment measures,” said Haag. He added that these cuts are being made at a time when there has been more emphasis on educational results.

Uniserv Director Jim Berryman also noted that teachers in the county have made concessions in pay raises and health as well have gone out of pocket to purchase classroom supplies.

“Our members do feel frustrated,” he said. “They feel frustrated that people don’t understand that they are giving.”

Association members are hoping, but not optimistic that the state will step in and help districts.

“We’ve shown a good balance of, both in recent years and moving into the future, of cost containment measures, but at the same time we do need assistance,” Haag said.