Community Members Gather for Forum on State School Budget Cuts

Shortly after Gov. Rick Snyder unveiled a plan for sweeping operational changes to Michigan’s school system, about 50 people gathered at for a “Fight School Cuts” forum. The forum focused primarily on Snyder's proposed $470-per-pupil cut in state funding.

State Rep. Dian Slavens (D-Canton), hosted the event, with state Rep. Vicki Barnett (D-Farmington Hills) and Rep. Lisa Brown (D-West Bloomfield). They promised to deliver the comments to legislators at hearings in Lansing.

Brown, the mother of three children, said the school cuts are very personal because she has three children in public school. She said the rush to change laws “doesn’t help to move (Michigan) forward” any more than the loss of business if film incentives are lost.

Barnett, after explaining that most taxes collected for schools are sent to one fund, which had $13 billion in it, said there should be no reason to panic about paying for education.

"This is what we call a manufactured crisis, because that money is delivered by the state and it shouldn't be fluctuating the way it is right now," Barnett said.

Darrick Rushing of Canton, father of four and a retired police officer, asked the trio to fight to prevent the school funding cuts. He said without schools, libraries and programs, communities will see more crime by younger criminals.

“Either you deal with them in school, where they need to be, or you going to see them in the street, going to incarceration. Please,” he said, “continue to fight for us. We will fight with you.”

Wednesday’s forum is one of about two dozen Democrats planned throughout the state. Slavens said the forums were set up in part to collect people's stories on how Snyder’s cuts will affect families. The forums are also a chance for the Democrats to rally voters.

Most in the Summit's banquet room were teachers and parents (or both). Plymouth-Canton Superintendent Craig Fiegel narrated a brief slideshow explaining the mechanics of school funding. The bottom line of his presentation: If Snyder made no additional cuts for 2012, a $650 million balance would remain the state education fund.

Instead, under Snyder’s proposal, more than $1 billion would be taken from kindergarten through 12th grade funding and would be shifted to three other places: junior colleges, universities and to cover the state's general fund deficit.

Gov. Rick Snyder’s overall state budget cuts, proposed earlier this year, drove Plymouth-Canton’s on Tuesday. Plymouth-Canton Schools have more than 1,000 teaching positions. Teachers and parents expressed concern about the long-term effects of budget cuts as well as Snyder's announcement Wednesday of a plan to make many operational changes.

Barnett said Snyder has called for “shared sacrifice” but she cited two House bills, 4361 and 4362, which she said would eliminate taxes for 95,000 businesses while making up the difference with school cuts, pension taxes and the elimination of homestead property tax exemptions.

Personal stories

For everyone present Wednesday, the effect on education seemed personal.

Van Buren School board member Sherry Frazier said voters in her community approved an expansion to the high school, but now she worries Snyder’s plan means “we won’t have resources to support it.”

Salem High civics teacher Darrin Silvester said he could have made much more money as a foreman in a Rouge plant but he chose teaching so he could help people.

“We work hard. We don’t expect $150,000 in pay,” he said.

One mother worried that Snyder’s cuts would hurt special needs children the most, because it costs more to educate them; another mom asked how children whose families couldn’t afford a computer would benefit from the online education plan Snyder proposed.

A teacher questioned why the governor would suggest less education for people who specialize in education. One woman, who identified herself as a second-grade teacher with 18 years experience and a master’s degree, said that over Easter Sunday dinner her daughter, a ninth-grader, announced she wanted to be a teacher, too, “just like mom.” The woman said, choking up: “I said no. No way.”

Action plans

Sheila Paton of Plymouth stepped up to the microphone to remind people to join the Legislative Action Network, which she co-chairs, and to find the group on Facebook, listed as Class Size Counts. This group plans to join a May 12 rally of parent-teacher groups on the Statehouse steps.

Slavens urged those present to email, call or write letters to Snyder and Michigan’s senators and representatives. She asked those present to sign up for alerts on bill at legislator.mi.gov and to make plans to visit Lansing to speak during committee hearings. She also asked people to visit fightschoolcuts.com and post comments there.