LANSING – The Save Our Students, Schools and State Coalition is looking for caps on what districts have to pay toward health care and retirement and automatic renewal of the 18-mill local school tax as ways to keep districts out of deficits in the coming years.
But the state also needs to step up and begin boosting funding for schools in both the short- and long term, the group said in its plan released Tuesday.
The state should at least return foundation grants to 2008-09 levels, with additional revenue coming from elimination of tax expenditures and changes in the sales tax as well as freezing coming income tax reductions, the group said. But it also urged a comprehensive review of school funding in line with a coming report from the Citizens Research Council.
“Lansing’s inability to deal with the core problems of state revenues and funding education is reprehensible,” said Tom White, chair of SOS. “Instead of dealing with the budget crunch in a thoughtful and timely way, the Legislature has walked away from its responsibility, which has left local school districts scrambling for ways to make ends meet.”
The state also needs to help districts keep costs down by capping what schools have to pay toward health and retirement benefits. Among the proposals supported by SOS is a requirement that all school employees pay a minimum portion of their health care premium (SB 1046 ) with a cap on the employer contribution.
The group also wants to see retirement ages increased for school employees to reduce the amount of time those retirees are covered under the schools’ health care plans. SOS said the pension system can handle the cash payments to those retiring in their 50s, but not the insurance premiums.
School employees also should not see automatic pay increases under expired contracts when a new contract agreement has not been reached, SOS said.
As most districts are not having problems renewing the 18 mills of local property tax on non-homestead property, the group is asking that tax be made permanent, rather than renewable, to eliminate the cost of elections. And it asked for school tax collections to be moved to summer to improve cash flow for districts.
The group also wants to expand the allowed uses for sinking funds to take some of the pressure off operating funds to make capital investments such as computers.
But the group said it would also promote service sharing among districts as a way to keep costs down locally.
At least some of the proposals do have the education community split. “We agree with SOS’s basic premise that our funding system is broken,” said Doug Pratt, spokesperson for the Michigan Education Association.
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