House K-12 Budget Reported from Committee
The House K-12 Appropriations Subcommittee has released its recommendation, and budget work has now resumed as the Legislature has returned from spring recess. The House analysis is attached, and here are some highlights in comparison to the Executive and Senate recommendations:
Foundation Allowance - The House concurred with the Governor's Recommendation of increases ranging from $120-$240 utilizing 2X, increasing the minimum foundation allowance to $7,871 and maximum to $8,409.
Shared Time/Cyber Schools - The House maintained current law and did not include the Governor's reductions. However, the House modifies shared-time boilerplate to include a requirement that a curricular offering is available to full-time pupils in the minor's grade level or age group and that the district has published the curricular offering in a course catalog provided to full-time pupils.
Marshall Plan for Talent - The House funds just over half of the Governor's recommendations with significant modifications - recall that the Governor earlier this year proposed allocating $100 million in towards initiatives to develop talent in certain areas in response to Michigan's failed bid on a new Amazon headquarters. The House and Senate subcommittee recommendations with respect to the Marshall Plan for Talent differ significantly, and final discussions on structure and funding for various Marshall Plan programs will have a significant impact on the overall K-12 budget as well.
Transportation - The House included a placeholder to consider payments to districts in the amount of $25 per general education rider, to be discussed further in conference committee.
At-Risk - The House does not change funding, but makes revisions to boilerplate as follows:
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Condenses MTSS components to the following:
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Team-based leadership,
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Tiered delivery system,
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Selection and implementation of instruction, interventions, and supports,
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Comprehensive screening and assessment system, and
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Continuous data-based decision making
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Requires districts to use at-risk resources in grades K-3 to comply with MCL 380.1280f, the early literacy legislation passed in 2016, and adds a requirement to focus on numeracy.
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Allows 5% of at-risk to be used on professional development and coaching that supports MTSS.
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Increases the share of pupil membership that must be economically disadvantaged from 40% to 50% for a district to utilize funds for schoolwide reform.
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Current law requires that beginning in 2018-2019, at least 50% of at-risk pupils must be proficient in ELA by the end of 3
rd
grade or demonstrating improvement on the 11
th
grade state summative assessment, otherwise districts must use half of their at-risk funding for improvement. The House maintains current law, but adds a third accountability metric of 50% at-risk pupils proficient in math by the end of 8
th
grade.
Early On: Included the recommended $5m we saw in the Executive Rec. Revised boilerplate away from a competitive pilot. Funds will be distributed via current formula.
While the House included a slight larger per-pupil foundation allowance than the Senate, it did not include any additional funding for early literacy. We will continue to pursue our priorities as the budget process continues, and will await final revenue estimates of how much money legislators have to work with in next year's budget at the Consensus Revenue Estimating Conference on May 17.
Governor's school safety plan unveiled
Governor Snyder unveiled his school safety initiative today, which includes $20 million for immediate and long-term improvements to school facilities and $2 million in next year's budget for schools that require basic security upgrades. While more details are forthcoming, here are some of the components of the plan that may be introduced as early as this week:
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Creation of a safe schools commission, which would develop a system to audit safety procedures in Michigan schools and distribute grants to make highest-priority security improvements,
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$18 million in 2018 for school safety grants,
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Establishment of a temporary School Safety Task Force,
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Pilot $2 million grant program for ISDs to implement behavioral assessment training,
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Increased funding for the OK2Say program,
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Michigan Commission on Law Enforcement Standards (MCOLES) training for school resource officers and development of an additional training standard for active violence response training, and
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Requirement of basic information on school tip lines.
Click Here for the 2018-19 FY School Aid Subcommittee Draft Summary
