In Michigan school budget, pork flows to Democratic districts

• Michigan Democrats have used $23.4 billion education budget to fund district-specific school projects, raising fairness concerns
• Deal includes $67 million for projects like athletic fields in Detroit and new schools in Taylor and near Flint
• Critics argue these grants lack transparency and public scrutiny, continuing controversial 'pork politics' practices

Michigan Democrats are increasingly using the state budget to directly fund pet projects for schools in their districts, including athletic fields and buildings, a Bridge Michigan analysis shows.

The $67 million in special funding tucked into a state budget awaiting the signature by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has prompted questions about fairness as school districts across the state seek additional funding.

For years, both Democrats and Republicans have added grants for hometown parks, museums, nonprofits and other projects to Michigan’s multi-billion dollar budgets.

Blasted as pork politics, those appropriations are often crafted in secret and involve no-bid contracts. They’ve proven so controversial that Democrats in recent years have moved to add more transparency.

Similar grants have begun to creep into the state’s $23.4 billion schools budget. This year, those projects include:

• $15 million for an athletic complex at Detroit’s Cooley High School, which is no longer open
• $10 million to the Wayne Regional Educational Service Agency for an academic and professional building
• $7 million for relocation of the Davis Aerospace Technical High School in Detroit
• $5 million for a new high school in the Beecher district, north of Flint, and $4 million for a new high school in Taylor
• $2.5 million for a career and technical education program in Dearborn

“These may well be needy projects, and they may well serve a public purpose, but we don’t know that because they didn’t go through any of the scrutiny” typically required for government contracts, said Craig Thiel, research director for the Citizens Research Council of Michigan.

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There was “no public debate of comparing projects,” he said. 

Republicans, who represent just under half of the 38
Senate and 110 House seats, said they were not part of the grant process. None supported the budget bill.

And few lawmakers even knew what was in the bill until hours before it was approved. 

Even a Democrat, Rep. Dylan Wegela of Garden City, was unhappy with one grant in the budget he ultimately supported: $250,000 for a private school in southwest Michigan.

“I don’t think private schools should get public money, plain and simple,” Wegela said. 

That funding was added by State Rep. Joey Andrews, D- St. Joseph, to help Brookview Montessori School in Benton Harbor, which has about 120 students ranging from infants to eighth graders. A recent roof collapse triggered repairs the school could not afford, said Larry Schanker, executive director of the school.

Schanker expressed gratitude for the help, and Andrews defended the grant, saying he didn’t want to “punish” parents because they chose to send their children to a private school.

“Everyone deserves a quality education,” Andrews said. “I don’t see a huge problem when there’s a literal disaster.”

The budget bills were approved by the House and Senate on June 27 after negotiations between Democratic legislative leaders and Whitmer, who has touted the spending plan and is expected to sign it soon.

State Budget Office spokesperson Lauren Leeds said Whitmer’s own budget recommendations did not include the grants and said her spending priorities included helping all families and students across Michigan.

Whitmer spokesperson Stacey LaRouche said the governor “is reviewing” the plan.

When Republicans were in charge, money was showered on projects in predominantly Republican districts or tied to Republican powerbrokers. Now, with Democrats holding narrow majorities in each chamber, the awards have flowed to their districts instead.

Past pork investigations

Lawmaker pork has raised eyebrows for years and led to at least three recent criminal investigations.

In the past two years, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has launched investigations into a $2 million grant from 2018 to fund efforts to bring commercial rockets to Michigan, a $25 million health and fitness project in Clare awarded to a former aide of former House Speaker Jason Wentworth in 2022, and a $20 million grant for a job incubator run by a Democratic power broker also approved in 2022.

Each of the investigations center on projects hand-picked by lawmakers and involve no-bid contracts for nonprofits.

Unlike those grants under investigation, school allocations included in the new budget mostly go to public entities that follow their own competitive bid policies and have elected school boards charged with accountability.

Still, the grants have lawmakers picking specific programs and projects, and few school districts outside of metro Detroit or Flint are getting special attention.

In the same budget, lawmakers scrapped plans for a per-pupil funding bump that would have been equally divided across districts. Instead, they approved a nearly $600 million reduction in pension payments, which vary by district. 

Combined with the special project grants, the funding plan angered school advocates who wanted the additional money spread more evenly across the state. 

“School aid money is better distributed across the board” — not “picking winners and losers by choosing specific districts,” said Don Wotruba, executive director of the Michigan Association of School Boards. 

Majority rules

In past budgets, lawmakers have approved pots of money that allow all districts to apply for grants, like a school safety grant program funded last year and $245 million to encourage districts to consolidate.

But this year, lawmakers redirected that consolidation money, setting aside $110 million for potential consolidation, another $25 million for “infrastructure emergencies,” and $75 million for “internal consolidation,” or for districts dealing with school closures.

The remaining $35 million, however, was directed by Democrats to specific school projects, like the athletic complex in Detroit. That’s in addition to another $32 million in additional grants for districts.

Amber McCann, spokesperson for House Democrats, acknowledged that more grants have been directed in recent years to specific school districts, and that many of them have gone to districts in Democratic districts.

“When you are in the majority you are going to see a budget that favors majority districts,” McCann said.

Detroit Public Schools requested $20 million — it got $15 million — to redevelop athletic fields at Cooley High in Detroit, which has been vacant since closing in 2010. The money will go toward facilities to offer flag football, soccer, lacrosse, indoor track and indoor for basketball and volleyball. The total project would cost between $70 million and $100 million, according to the district.

The district requested the funding in a February letter to Democratic lawmakers, including House Speaker Joe Tate of Detroit and Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks of Grand Rapids.

The total amount spent this year on grants — exceeding $400 million including in the general fund and school budgets — was a fraction of the $1 billion plus in grants approved in the two prior budgets but far more than the $115 million approved in 2018 under Republican Gov. Rick Snyder.

The grants typically crop up in the latest stages of the budget process, with no prior review by a committee and leaving lawmakers little time to know what’s being voted on.

‘Good priorities’

Democrats last month passed the 2024-25 education and general government budgets by the narrowest of margins — 56-54 in the House and 20-18 in the Senate. Every Democrat had to agree or the budget would not have passed.

Lawmakers denied the grants were traded for votes. 

State Rep. Regina Weiss, D-Oak Park, acknowledged that Democrats advocated for the grants but said her vote in favor of the school budget wasn’t tied to them. One grant will send $2.1 million to help the Marygrove Conservancy in Detroit, which is in her district, create a film school.

She said they were “good priorities that should be invested in.”

Because of anger over school funding decisions, school district advocates did not expect to see select districts get additional money.

“There are so many of these grants in there that I don’t think anyone was expecting,” said Robert McCann, executive director of The K12 Alliance of Michigan which was advocating for funding that would be equally distributed to districts. 

“It is what it is. But you can say it’s at least going to schools.”

Most of the grant projects are in communities represented by Democrats, with just a couple also represented by Republicans. They include Dearborn, Harper Woods, Lansing, Clintondale, Algonac, South Lyon, Farmington, Okemos, Detroit and Macomb and Wayne counties, as well as Brooklyn and the Rudyard schools in the Upper Peninsula. 

The money for the Taylor district would help build a school in a state house district where Rep. Jim DeSana, a Republican, is the legislator. But he told Bridge Michigan it was not his request, nor was he asked for input.

“We didn't know about them and were never made aware of them and were never included in the process," DeSana said. 

The senator representing Taylor, however, is Democrat Erika Geiss, vice chair of the education committee. She did not respond to questions from Bridge about the Taylor grant.