LANSING — Michigan’s finalized education budget was signed into law Tuesday, to the relief of Northern Michigan superintendents.
The plan maintains most of the state’s large spending items, including tens of millions for school meals, transportation and mental health.
“It could have been a lot worse,” said Tom McKee, superintendent of Rudyard Area Schools.
The budget also comes more than three months after lawmakers were supposed to finalize their plans and school districts had to adopt budgets based on their best guesses.
“We are are happy to have a budget now, and we’re figuring out what we’re working with,” said Katy Xenakis-Makowski, superintendent of Johannesburg-Lewiston Area Schools. “It was really unfortunate that it was done so late.”
Northern Michigan educators say that rural school districts fared better than they expected in the final plan — but they remained frustrated with lawmakers for the months of uncertainty over spending.
“It took time away from our employees who could have been working on student needs and staff needs, and we were spending time trying to figure out what we were doing with this budget,” Xenakis-Makowski said.
Overall, the budget comes in at around $24 billion, an increase of about $500 million over last year’s spending.
Some new spending items from the state include $100 million for school infrastructure repairs, $70 million for CTE programs and another $70 million for teacher certification and retention.
Those grants are awarded through a competitive process, meaning that districts have to apply for the funds and they may not be granted.
Northern Superintendents say that smaller communities could be at a disadvantage with these grants, since they have fewer resources to go around.
“You might also coach a team, teach a class, drive the bus,” McKee said. “You don’t have time to do the application process for those grants and and that’s a shame that our kids are going to miss out”
Educators say that lawmakers should adhere to their July 1st deadline in future cycles to avoid unnecessary chaos.
“I’m not sure, obviously, what the intent was and how this all rolled out — but I do feel the budget was done to us instead of with us,” Xenakis-Makowski said.