Survey: 1-in-10 Michigan districts cut class staff for new school year

One in 10 Michigan school districts have made classroom personnel cuts ahead of this academic year, according to a survey of school district leaders.

The survey released Friday by the Michigan School Business Officials reported 214 respondents from Aug. 12 to Aug. 20. The state has about 800 school districts. The group has about 4,500 members.

Districts’ new fiscal year started July 1, prompting school boards across the state to approve budgets without clarity from the state on school funding. The state’s fiscal year begins Oct. 1.

The survey found:

11% of districts have had classroom personnel layoffs
15% had non-classroom personnel layoffs
42% cut staff through attrition
27% made non-staff spending cuts

Districts also reported pushing back building maintenance, increasing workloads for staff and increasing class sizes.

The cuts aren’t necessarily the result of budget uncertainty. The survey summary said 15% of respondents made budget changes “because of federal cuts and/or the lack of a state budget deal,” while another 44% are considering cuts. Earlier this summer, the Trump administration declined to distribute millions of federal funds but later relented.

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House Speaker Matt Hall, R-Richland Township, said reductions may be premature, noting that while a final deal hasn’t been reached, all sides have proposed increased funding for schools.

“If I was a school superintendent … and I saw that all parties wanted to increase my funding, I wouldn’t be making all of these crazy decisions,” he said Thursday, one day before the survey was released.

In a joint statement Friday, several groups urged lawmakers to pass a budget. The groups include the Michigan Alliance for Student Opportunity, Michigan Association of Superintendents & Administrators, Michigan Association of School Boards and Michigan Association of Intermediate School Administrators.

“Superintendents cannot simply assume that funding will ‘work itself out,’” the statement said.

“Without certainty, leaders are left with no choice but to make tough, often painful decisions now to protect their districts’ long-term stability.”

State of the state budget

The Republican-led House, Democratic-led Senate and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer each unveiled roughly $21 billion K-12 budgets earlier this year that would provide greater funding to schools than the fiscal year prior.

But those budgets are still tied up in the Legislature, having long passed the statutory July 1 deadline for signing a budget into law.

The House has still yet to unveil the majority of its budget proposal, only passing a handful of education-related budget bills in July. Hall has chalked up the lack of progress to continuously finding more of what Republicans consider “waste, fraud and abuse” in Michigan state government.

Democrats blame Republicans. Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks, D-Grand Rapids, on Wednesday told reporters it is “truly unbelievable” the state has yet to pass a school budget.

“The stakes could not be higher,” Brinks said. “While the new school year is already underway for districts all over the state, schools still do not have the security of state funding to responsibly determine their own budgets.”

In a statement, State Budget Director Jen Flood acknowledged that while she’s “optimistic that we’re going to get a budget deal … this hasn’t been a normal year.”

“We’re in constant communication with our partners from both chambers and we’ll continue working together to pass a balanced and bipartisan budget that prioritizes fixing our roads and funding the core services that Michiganders rely on each day,” Flood said.

School leaders caution

Jason Helsen, the associate executive director of the school business official group, told Bridge he’s encouraged that most districts have avoided staff cuts.

“We were impressed by how many districts said, ‘We’ve made sound financial decisions over the last several years, we’ve protected our fund balance reserves and we expect to weather this in the short term,’” Helsen said.

The majority of respondents to the survey are budgeting for an increase in state funding, with 66% saying they planned for an increase of $200 to $400 per student and 82% expecting an increase in state funds for schools.

Half of respondents expect an enrollment decline. The state distributes school funding on a per-pupil basis, meaning that, if a district has a large enough decline in the number of students enrolled, even with a per-pupil bump, the district may have less state funds than the previous year.

In the email to members, Helsen cautioned that choices such as delaying purchases or hiring decisions, freezing salaries or shifting spending could be harmful down the road.

“These sorts of adjustments can help school districts make it through a rough patch in the short term, but they can have detrimental impacts in the longer term.”