Michigan lawmakers last week passed a new $12.8 billion budget for public schools in fiscal 2010, but still must finish an overall state government spending plan for the next year.
Both the Democratic-controlled House and Republican-led Senate voted late on Oct. 8 to cut K-12 funding by the equivalent of $165 per student in the current academic year. Overall K-12 funding would drop by $482 million from fiscal 2009. The votes were a breakthrough in the impasse that caused legislators to miss a deadline to pass a budget plan and erase a $2.8 billion deficit.
State departments are now running on a budget that expires Oct. 31, but K-12 schools have no budget at all. The bill passed last week would fix that, assuming Gov. Jennifer Granholm signs it. The school deal is better than the $218 per-student cut that lawmakers had rejected earlier.
