A lawmaker from Michigan’s thumb is highlighting how Democrats’ $82.5 billion 2025 budget is shortchanging students in his rural district, where school resource officers and mental health professionals are bracing for layoffs.
Carsonville Republican Rep. Greg Alexander on Tuesday focused attention on a planned $302 million cut to school safety and mental health funding in the 2025 budget that’s currently awaiting Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s signature.
“When parents drop their kids off at school for the day, they want to know that resources and dedicate professionals are there to make sure their kids are safe and healthy as they learn and prepare for the futures ahead of them,” Alexander said. “Unfortunately, the budget strips some of these resources by eliminating hundreds of millions of dollars that go toward safety and mental health.
“It’s incredible that even with another state budget that spends over $80 billion in taxpayer money, we’re looking at a situation where there’s going to be less available to keep kids safe at school,” he said. “That’s misguided and unacceptable. Districts and families in the Thumb will feel the impact of these reductions in funding.”
Alexander notes the cut equates to 92% less funding for school safety and mental health than what’s in the current budget, and he offered a breakdown of how much schools in his district stand to lose once Whitmer makes it official.
The biggest losers will be North Branch Area Schools, with a $511,748 reduction, followed by Croswell-Lexington Community Schools with a $372,629 loss and Elkton-Pigeon-Bay Port Laker Schools with a $212,237 cut.
Another nine school districts will face six figure cuts, while six face five figure cuts.
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In other larger school districts the impact is much bigger.
Northville Public Schools Superintendent RJ Webber told Chalkbeat Detroit his district will now receive $122,000 instead of $1.5 million it was expecting, leaving local officials scrambling to pay for school resource officers, radios, student programing, and internships for staff pursuing mental health careers.
“Now, those things we have to revisit,” Webber said.
“That kind of loss of funding will have an impact on us,” he said. “But we are seeing where we can nip and tuck to try to keep cuts away from classrooms.”
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That will be especially difficult because lawmakers neglected to increase base funding for schools in the 2025 budget for the first time since 2011, a double whammy at a time when inflation is driving up costs.
“It’s upsetting because that would have meant $1.6 million to our district that is now zero,” Webber said.
The situation isn’t sitting well with the Michigan Education Association, which helped to elect in 2022 to a majority in both chambers of the legislature for the first time in 40 years.
“We cannot celebrate all aspects of this budget,” MEA President Chandra Madafferi said in a recent statement. “There were deep cuts to categorical funding for school safety and student mental health – cuts that will need to be navigate at the local level to keep our schools safe learning spaces for all students and employees. Our hope is that state lawmakers will return after the summer break to pass a supplemental budget that funds these critical student mental health and safety priorities.”
The union, along with others in the education establishment, are already lobbying lawmakers to make that happen, while also pushing to make permanent reductions in mandated payments to the state’s retirement system.
“I think districts are trying right now to understand the impact of the state budget and then figure out how they can patch things together to continue services for student mental health and safety without a dedicated funding source – but also pay for wage increases for teachers and staff,” Dan Behm, who represents 45 districts at the capitol as executive director of Education Advocates of West Michigan, told Chalkbeat Detroit.
“Without additional funding through a supplemental budget,” Madafferi argued, “our state risks falling short of providing the quality public education that every student deserves and needs.”
As school districts struggle to make up the $302 million cut to school safety and mental health, Democrats plan to spend more than $334 million on pet projects for lawmakers that include a $1 million ski jump in Ironwood, $17 million for zoos in Detroit and Lansing, $1.5 million for Jimmy John’s Field in Utica, $1 million for the Lansing Lugnuts baseball stadium, $2 million for Hamtramck’s Negro League Field, $2 million for a Detroit boxing gym, and $3.2 million for land on Mackinac Island, Bridge Michigan reports.
Millions more was directed by Democrats to drones, electric vehicle chargers, e-bike incentives, legal services for “asylum seekers,” “free” tampons, and other nonsense.