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Issue 1561 November 25, 2012
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As a May vote on a tax plan for roads looms, a look back shows that we probably shouldn't have trusted the state on Proposal A either!

ROADS DOOMED? State Voters Historically Have Rejected Tax Proposals

A Cautionary Tale of Manipulation and Exploitation of Local School Funding

January 26, 2015       1 Comments
By: Dave Rogers

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The only time in the past 37 years that Michigan voters have trusted any state proposal was in 1994 with Proposal A.

And that didn't cost us anything.

In fact it resulted in a $1 billion tax cut.

It was a no brainer.

"On March 15, 1994 the only choice the electorate had was to decide whether it preferred a 2% sales tax instead of an increase in the income tax," wrote Bill Ballenger in his latest Inside Michigan Politics newsletter.

But as a May vote on a tax plan for roads looms, a look back shows that we probably shouldn't have trusted the state on Proposal A either!

Proposal A, taking school taxing power and funding decisions away from local school district voters, put all the money in a statewide school aid fund pot controlled from Lansing.

The idea was to equalize funding and reduce inequity between school districts. The Have school districts would no longer lord it over the Have-Not schools. Everybody was to ride off smiling into the sunset with similar bags of gold on their saddlebags, right? WRONG!

The passage of Proposal A by a whopping 69-31 ratio opened the door for lobbyists, led lately by former Governor John Engler, to tap the Lansing school money pot for private companies like K-12 Inc., on whose board he sits.

Ironically, Engler was the white knight who rode in during the late 1990s to cleanse Michigan schools of private companies and ambitious school districts (as well as some admittedly unscrupulous ones) who rode the wave of adult education into the ground.

A worthy program in the main, adult education now is only penuriously funded and barely exists today. The operative stale idea still hanging around is "Work First." Don't go to school and gain added skills to upgrade your career and life, that might cost the state some adult ed funding. Work First at McDonalds, Meijer and other large employers. An academic study is needed to determine the damage to workers and their families that mainly minimum wage initiative has produced.

We never thought anything like the extensive privatization of Michigan's mainly exemplary public schools could ever happen. But it did and the slimy tentacles of Connections Academy, K-12 Inc. and other voracious corporate education providers (or bandits if you will) are so far sucking something like $225 million out of the state school aid fund every year. (An estimated 20,000 to 30,000 students are reportedly enrolled in cyber schools and other programs of private companies in Michigan.)

Plus, the fact that the Legislature has the school aid purse strings has allowed legislators to decide to rip off a little here for colleges and universities, and a little here for road repairs, and who knows what all?

After Proposal A, local school district voters no longer had to worry about voting millages to pay for their children's schools, they just had to worry if Lansing was going to cut them an equitable check in a timely fashion, or not.

Often, the answer has been NOT! The state school budget has been politicized by ultra conservative lawmakers bent on putting the shaft to the schools. Teachers unions, notoriously political (on the Democratic side mainly) were a prime target.

But, as usual, local school districts, parents and school children are paying the price.

How does this work? the state chisels the funding for School District A, throwing it into deficit. District A is placed on the "districts in deficit list." The required remedy: cut the teachers' salaries, reduce staff, tighten your belt or we'll cut off all your funding and your friendly little hometown school district goes dark. Can you say Buena Vista?

In essence nothing has changed in this regard since the early 1960s pre-Proposal A when the phrase "out of formula" was used by state officials to deny full funding to selected districts. It was another devious way to create equity between school districts.

Then local voters were under the gun to vote in extra millage or layoff teachers and cut programs. Bay City lost three straight millage votes and was about to be forced to close its doors until citizens rallied and squeaked through extra millage in 1964, and 1965, and 1966, and 1967, etc. Remember Save Our Schools, Support Our Students and other emotional slogans?

How about half-days, combining high schools and junior highs, closing dozens of neighborhood elementary schools, and on and on? The state has not been kind to local school districts; now it is in the process of privatizing as many schools and students as it can. Wall Street takes over Main Street.

This is a calculated program nationally, Michigan is not alone. Wall Street tycoons have announced they see the huge bank vault of public school funding as the next profit frontier, and Michigan is in the sights of the gunslinger lobbyists along with the rest of the nation.

Ballenger, Michigan's top political pundit, a former Republican state legislator with a firm grasp on everything in Michigan that has happened since Lewis Cass was governor, predicts voters in May will not look kindly on the tax plan.

Ballenger bases his gloom and doom on history -- see accompanying chart.

When a Michigan proposal includes increased taxes, Michigan voters have generally nixed it.

Says Ballenger: "If history is any guide, this is going to be a hard sell."

Get your heavy duty shocks and super snow tires ready, the roads probably will get worse before they get better.

###

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"The BUZZ" - Read Feedback From Readers!

Mary Dee says:       On January 30, 2015 at 12:48 PM
You are the most articulate writer in the universe..I love all of your articles..(well maybe some I disagree with).
Agree? or Disagree?


Dave Rogers

Dave Rogers is a former editorial writer for the Bay City Times and a widely read,
respected journalist/writer in and around Bay City.
(Contact Dave Via Email at carraroe@aol.com)

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