Where Has All the Money Gone?

Year after year Michigan’s K-12 Boards of Education are visited by representatives from the Michigan Association of School Boards. The visits are to educate and inform elected members of the governing body representing local K-12 schools, and their administrators. I sat on the Harrison Community Schools BOE for 14 years. I attended conferences year after year to listen and learn how to be an informed member, engaged in learning all aspects of school governing. We heard and responded to the dire future of the K-12 school body due to severe and continuing cuts to the School Aid Funding budget.

Boards all over Michigan struggled with the same issues. We saw programs cut, teacher layoffs and increased class size due to the shortages. It was, and continues to be, something that all board members struggle with and do with regret. To board members and administrators alike, any decision that takes away from much needed resources their schools desperately need for all students to succeed, is made only after much struggle and disappointment; while at the same time, being assured that the cuts are necessary due to a lack of adequate funding.

Several months ago, I was made aware that monies from the K-12 School Aid Fund are given to colleges, community colleges and universities. I say that I was only recently made aware of this practice with much regret because, as an elected member of the BOE, it was my responsibility to be aware and to understand budget issues for which I was responsible. In the weeks following, I told people, anyone who would listen, about this practice. Not one person I spoke with knew about the issue.

“School Aid Fund (SAF) revenues have increasingly been used as a fund source in both the Community Colleges and Higher Education budgets. The use of SAF in postsecondary budgets first began as a stop-gap measure due to revenue shortfalls in FY 2009-10 during the Great Recession, but has since grown to $908.3 million, supporting all of the Community Colleges budget and a third of state funds in the Higher Education budget for FY 2018-19, (House Fiscal Agency, 2018). “(emphasis mine)

“The Legislature intended the fund swap to be a one-time solution and included boilerplate Sec. 301, which provided its intent that the SAF be considered a loan to the General Fund, and that the General Fund repay the SAF over the subsequent 5 fiscal years (House Fiscal Agency, 2018).”

To date, I am not aware of any monies being paid back to the K-12 fund.

To put this in perspective, Michigan State University tuition is $14,460 per year for in-state residents. This is 101% more expensive than the national average public four-year tuition of $7,203. Additionally, Michigan State University has an endowment fund of over $2.5 billion, which is an increase of $500 million over the year before. It is its largest ever year-to-year jump. That is $BILLION. Endowments can grant scholarships and set tuition. Central Michigan University endowment fund is merely $1.067 billion. CMU’s tuition per year is $12, 960.

And yet, apparently these institutions must rely on our K-12 funding to survive. Community colleges also receive funding from this fund. I ask myself, what is being done with the monies that take away from our K-12 students? How much of this money given to MSU has gone to pay off lawsuits over the gross mismanagement and blind-eye sexual abuse? What is CMU doing with their cut? How has MMC used their share?

Please keep in mind that these institutions are tuition based. Students pay to go there. And in many places, they pay dearly. Our governor has recently proposed that every high school student fill out a FAFSA (Federal Application for Federal Student Aid) while a senior. Unfortunately, although we have an enormous PELL Grant fund, most of the families will be directed to loan institutions for funding. Students are increasingly graduating from higher ed institutions with little to show other that tens of thousands of dollars in debt. A debt they will struggle to pay at all. A debt that will weigh on their backs like an albatross for years to come. For what? For the promise of a degree that in all likelihood will be useless before they graduate. For promises of careers few will find. They are being lied to and not given all the tools that any person will need to succeed in this society. Not only to succeed, but to feel a sense of worth in what they do, to have a path in life they are proud of and are able to pursue – debt free.

Shame on us. Shame on those of us who have not jealously guarded what has been entrusted to us; the children in our care in our school systems; the monies put in our care that would enrich and grow our students to become successful, thriving adults.

We need to stop funding colleges, community colleges, and universities – the institutions that charge our young people to attend, institutions that have billions of dollars – and require those institutions to pay back what they owe to the K-12 fund. I believe MSU can afford it.

Put that money back into the K-12 fund. Put energy back into studying what can be done to grow the ones who need it the most – our K-12 students. I am happy to sit on any panel charged with brainstorming ideas and creating fresh starts.

Christine Pechacek

Harrison