The Detroit News. June 19, 2018
Lawmakers, governor step up for Michigan schools
It’s campaign season in Michigan, in case you haven’t noticed. And candidates for governor and the Legislature - especially Democrats - are blaming their Republican colleagues for many of the woes in education. But as this latest budget shows, GOP lawmakers just approved the largest single-year budget increase for schools in 15 years, after previous years of boosting funding for public schools.
Lawmakers are proving they value Michigan’s education system by directing a record amount of money to our K-12 schools, approving last week a $56.8 billion budget for the next fiscal year - and directing $14.8 billion of that to schools. Gov. Rick Snyder is expected to sign off on the budget, since much of it was his proposal.
Behind only the Department of Health and Human Services, the state’s public schools consistently receive the biggest chunk of the Michigan budget.
School funding has been steadily increasing since 1995, even with occasional drops in funding through the years as the state dealt with budget shortfalls.
In this latest budget lawmakers include a $312 million increase for foundation allowances for students. Schools will be receiving $120 to $240 more per student, depending on a district’s need, and each district will see a 3.1 percent raise in the minimum allowance per student to $7,871 from $7,631.
The budget also sets aside about $100 million for Snyder’s Marshall Plan for Talent to prepare students for the workforce and jobs in the skilled trades. An additional $58 million will go toward school safety measures, including $25 million for upgraded door locks and $30 million for mental health services. Special education, at-risk students and early literacy will also see a boost.
And $1.2 billion will be directed to the Michigan school employees’ retirement system, which has suffered in recent years from billions in unfunded liabilities and placed strains on local school budgets.
To top it off, lawmakers are only using dedicated School Aid funds this year, which will save the state’s general fund $155 million, according to Rep. Tim Kelly, chair of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on School Aid. The Saginaw Township Republican also chairs the House Education Reform Committee.
Some lawmakers say more funding is required for schools to run properly and efficiently, but Kelly disagrees, saying strategic funding is vital.
“More money’s not necessarily the issue,” Kelly says. “The issue is how it’s spent. We need to get more money into the classroom.”
Ben DeGrow, director of education policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, believes the state government should give less money to categorical grants (which go to specific programs that are more restrictive in terms of how funds are spent) and put more into foundation allowances.
That’s worth considering, as numerous groups are pushing the state to re-think how it funds schools.
In the meantime, the numbers speak for themselves: State and federal money for public schools has been increasing for decades, and Republican lawmakers are continuing this trend.
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Times Herald (Port Huron). June 20, 2018
GOP groups fight fair vote districts
For the time being, it looks like Michigan voters will get a chance to straighten out Michigan’s crooked electoral districts. Under orders from the Michigan Court of Appeals, the state board of canvassers met Wednesday to certify the more than 400,000 petition signatures that Voters Not Politicians gathered to reform reapportionment in Michigan.
Voters Not Politicians wants to take the reapportionment process away from the Legislature and give the job to a non-partisan panel. The goal is to bring election districts into compliance with the law, which requires districts to contain the same number of citizens and expects that they will be drawn in a way that makes them as close to square as possible. Instead, Republican lawmakers gave us districts in St. Clair County alone that are so obviously intended to disenfranchise the Democratic voters in the Port Huron, Marysville, St. Clair and Marine City it is almost laughable.
The result of the Legislature’s twisted map-making over the past decade is that although Democratic candidates for the state House and Senate get more votes statewide than their Republican opponents, more Republicans get elected. It means that the interests of areas that tend to elect Democrats are not represented in Lansing. And it means that the voters in those areas - Democrats and Republicans - are casting votes that don’t matter.
Someone once called that taxation without representation.
Like the guys who threw British tea into Boston Harbor, Voters Not Politicians is a grassroots effort. Instead of spending thousands of dollars hiring a firm to circulate its petitions, thousands of volunteers collected its signatures. And they didn’t have much trouble collecting more than the number required because voters are fed up.
Their effort to straighten out the state’s gerrymandered voting districts isn’t over yet. Voters Not Politicians has opposition that has appealed the appeals court’s order to the state Supreme Court. The high court would not block the order to the put the issue on the November ballot, for now, but will hear arguments from Citizens Protecting Michigan’s Constitution.
Citizens Protecting Michigan’s Constitution isn’t exactly a grassroots, “citizens” organization. It is a front for the state Chamber of Commerce and Republican Party. It is getting tens of thousands of dollars from, among others, a group called Fair Lines America, a Virginia organization that is spending millions of dollars fighting gerrymandering reforms across the country.
CPMC isn’t defending the Michigan constitution. And Fair Lines America is not advocating for fair, competitive voting districts. CPMC is protecting Republican seats in the Michigan Legislature and Fair Lines America is defending the unfair process that gave the GOP a majority it didn’t earn.
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Petoskey News-Review. June 18, 2018
Here’s our weekly look at the people, organizations and businesses that make Charlevoix and Emmet counties a great place to live.
Eagle Scout
Congratulations to Kallan Lee Williams on recently earning the rank of Eagle Scout.
Kallan is a member of Boy Scout Troop No. 5. His Eagle Scout project involved designing and building three orienteering courses at the City of Petoskey’s River Road complex.
Kallan is a student at Petoskey High School, where he maintained a 3.96 grade point average his freshman year. He is also active in soccer and track and field.
Essay contest winners
Congratulations to Jack Robinson, Highlander J. Sweet-Jenema and Ida Dwan on recently being named the winners of the Emmet County Historical Commission’s annual essay contest for elementary school students.
Jack, of Petoskey, won first place and the $100 award. Highlander, of Shay Elementary School in Harbor Springs, won second place and the $50 award. Ida, of Petoskey, won honorable mention.
Jack’s essay was about Bishop Frederick Baraga’s first experience with snowshoes, and how he helped the local Odawa cultivate the land so they would not starve over the winter.
Highlander’s essay was about his uncle’s eyewitness recounting of the 1971 B-52 bomber crash into Little Traverse Bay.
Ida’s essay provided a historical synopsis of the Emmet County Fair, and experiences she and her family have had there.
The awards for the essay contest are possible with a grant from the Bob Schulze Fund for Creative Writing at the Petoskey-Harbor Springs Area Community Foundation.
Vaping forum
Kudos to those who helped organize a recent forum at Petoskey Middle School focusing on vaping and other risky behaviors.
The forum was designed to give parents, community members and school officials from other districts information regarding harmful behaviors teenagers may be performing.
Representatives from Alcona Health Center, the Michigan State Police, the Health Department of Northwest Michigan and the Public Schools of Petoskey were presenters during the event.
’Sleeping Beauty’
Congratulations to the dancers who recently took part in the Crooked Tree Arts Center School of Ballet’s production of “Sleeping Beauty.”
The performance took place on June 8 and 9 at the Harbor Springs Performing Arts Center. More than 175 dancers from all experience levels, ages 4 and up, took part in the show. Natalie Bonter of Harbor Springs danced in the title role of Sleeping Beauty.
Voices Without Borders
Congratulations to the members of Voices Without Borders who are taking part in the Dublin Choral Festival in Dublin, Ireland, and the Celebration of American Music in Scotland.
This is the group’s first international tour overseas and includes 20 youth singers from Alanson, Bellaire, Boyne City, Charlevoix, Cheboygan, Cross Village, Petoskey, Vanderbilt and Wolverine. The singers will be joined by nine percussive dancers from Maryland’s Dance Unbound, and their teacher and dancer, Christine Galante.
Bellaire’s percussive dancer, Lexi Strand, will perform with Dance Unbound and Little Traverse Youth Choir member, Karlee Exelby, will perform an Odawa Fancy Shawl Dance.
As part of their trip, the group will visit the Boyne Valley in the Republic of Ireland, where Boyne City’s first permanent settlers came from in 1856.
The group left for their trip on June 12.
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The Mining Journal (Marquette). June 19, 2018
This time, it’s personal.
It’s not that the other natural disasters, hurricanes, river floods, wildfires in distant locations our nation has experienced in recent years were impersonal. Obviously, when any American is against the wall, the rest of us feel badly and wonder what we can do.
But the severe thunderstorm that passed through the western Upper Peninsula and Copper Country late Saturday night and Sunday morning, dropping huge amounts rain on a landscape rent asunder, was different, wrecking the homes, health and happiness of people we know and care about.
This time, it’s personal.
With little doubt, it’ll be weeks or much longer before the damage is totaled up. Don’t be surprised if the bottom line, with everything considered, tops $1 billion. That’s billion with a B. For the time being, just getting hundreds and hundreds of displaced and otherwise stressed people the basics is job one. The Red Cross was in early with emergency provisions while local officials wasted no time setting up shelters that provided food and water.
For their part, state officials have been active, with Michigan State Police coordinating from an emergency center. Local police agencies and emergency responders were busy and late Monday afternoon, Gov. Rick Snyder declared Menominee and Houghton counties disaster areas, allowing the use of National Guard troops to assist with road repairs and other duties in the affected areas.
At this writing, it was unclear if Snyder would ask President Donald Trump to issue a Major Disaster Declaration, opening the way for a variety of federal programs including temporary housing, low-interest loans and grants, counseling for post-disaster trauma and other services.
In the coming days, weeks and months, we expect a number of good-faith fundraisers to crop up to support the people most impacted. We’d recommend readers give them serious consideration.
Because, as we said earlier, this time, it’s personal.
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