MIRS NEWS

MIRS BREAKING NEWS: School Bus
Provides $65 Per-Pupil Hike, Restores
Colleges, U’s To Pre-COVID Levels, More –
10:45 AM

The School Aid budget for next fiscal year will pay out $65 in one-time per-pupil increases for
K-12 schools, but the foundation allowance minimum and maximum will not change, in the
conference committee report adopted today for the Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 budget. The budget
passed the Senate moments ago on a vote of 36 to 1, with Sen. Tom BARRETT (R-Potterville)
casting the lone no vote.
The conference committee report SB 0927 passed the committee unanimously and contains
spending for K-12 schools, community colleges and higher education. There was no discussion
among the conference members and the entire proceeding took no more than 10 minutes.
After Senate passage, the bill is on the House agenda for action today, as well.
For K-12, the $175 per-pupil reduction that happened earlier this year was done away with, as
the conference report restored the reduction, and then added $95 million on top of that for the
roughly $65 per-pupil one-time payment increase.
Sen. Wayne SCHMIDT (R-Traverse City), chair of the Senate’s K-12 appropriations
subcommittee, noted that not only did the final product manage to maintain per-pupil funding,
there was also an increase, which he called “tremendous.”
“Considering the times we’re in and the economic state that we’re in, this budget . . . is very
good,” he said.
Kathryn SUMMERS with the Senate Fiscal Agency (SFA) noted that’s not an increase in the
foundation allowance, but rather to overall state aid. The foundation allowances will hold at
$8,111 for the minimum and $8,529 for the maximum.
The overall School Aid Fund (SAF) budget for K-12 for FY 2021 will top out at $15.5 billion.
Other spending increases in the SAF include $195 million in additional costs for the teacher
retirement system, $66 million set aside for districts that will see increased enrollment beyond
the 75-25 enrollment blend formula set up by the Return to Learn package, another $5.6 million
for school mental health grants, $5 million for teacher retention incentives and $55.3 million in
required increases for special education.

The conference committee also provided $1 million in a new program for schools to be
reimbursed if they forgive school meal debt. And while Gov. Gretchen WHITMER had
proposed a 20% cut to cyber schools, the final spending document did not include that.
Rather, House K-12 Appropriations Subcommittee Chair Aaron MILLER sees cyber schools
that are seeing steep increases in enrollment getting a chunk of the $66 million for increased
enrollment.
A $100 placeholder for reimbursing private schools for state mandates was included in the
budget, as funding for that has been subject to ongoing litigation.
As for the community colleges and higher education portion of the budget, Summers said it
restores funding for both to pre-COVID levels. The Governor’s proposals for a 2.5% operations
increase for both community colleges and higher ed institutions was not adopted.
For community colleges, that’s a sum total of $425.6 million, which marks a $10.9 million
increase over the FY 2020 year-to-date spending to date of $414.7 million.
For higher education, their budget will hold at $1.6 billion for FY 2021, an $8.5 million increase
from the spending in FY 2020 to date.
The SFA analysis of the SB 0927 School Bus is here, while the House Fiscal Agency (HFA)
analysis is here.
Check back with MIRS later for a deeper dive on the education omnibus budget bill, as well as
the “Big Bus” bill, which will contain spending for the rest of state government and is expected
to be adopted later today.