LANSING — Michigan lawmakers are to reconvene at the Capitol in Lansing on Tuesday, June 30, one day before their self-imposed July 1 deadline to approve a state budget for the 2027 fiscal year.
But even if they pass a budget by the deadline, that will be too late for the vast majority of Michigan’s nearly 900 school districts.
That’s because state law says school districts must adopt their budgets “before commencement of the budget year.” And school district fiscal years typically begin July 1, three months earlier than the Oct. 1 start of the state’s fiscal year.
So, that gives each school district a June 30 deadline to pass an annual budget — one day earlier than the deadline set for the Legislature to present a budget to the governor under a 2019 state law.
“School districts have been forced this month to pass their budgets on imaginary numbers,” regardless of whether the Legislature now acts by July 1, Jennifer Smith, director of legislative affairs for the Michigan Association of School Boards, told the Detroit Free Press in a June 26 interview.
It’s not clear why the law, Public Act 160 of 2019, set a deadline which, even if met, would require Michigan school districts to pass their own budgets without knowing how much state funding they would receive.
The law was passed late in 2019, along with a raft of other budget-related bills that were part of a deal to end a budget impasse between Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and the GOP-controlled Legislature. House Bill 5177 passed both the state House and Senate by unanimous votes and received relatively little media attention at the time.
Though the law has become associated with a legislative intent to help school districts, that does not appear to have been the sole or even the major focus back in 2019.
The primary sponsor, state Rep. Greg VanWoerkom, R-Norton Shores, told the Grand Haven Tribune in 2019 that the law would offer more certainty for schools, local governments and other critical programs that rely on state funding to operate.
“Hindsight is 20/20, and given this year’s budget impasse, we’ve learned no one benefits when the budget process pushes right up to the Oct. 1 constitutional deadline,” VanWoerkom, who did not respond to June 24 and 25 requests for comment from the Free Press, told the Grand Haven newspaper in 2019.
He said providing a “three-month buffer” to resolve lingering disagreements between the Legislature and the governor was “a commonsense solution that will help restore trust in the budget process,” and ensure taxpayers “are not used as political pawns in budget negotiations ever again.”
However, the law has no teeth in that there is no penalty for missing the July 1 deadline, which is routinely flouted by lawmakers. Last year, for example, the Legislature did not pass the 2026 budget until early in the morning of Oct. 3, which was after the start of the state fiscal year.
Peter Spadafore, executive director of the Michigan Alliance for Student Opportunity, said the use of school funding as a political bargaining chip to be played against other spending priorities in the broader budget is a significant reason the July 1 deadline is frequently missed.
Though having a state budget passed in early July is better than early October, both Smith and Spadafore said the law needs teeth and an earlier deadline, such as June 1, if it’s going to help school districts.
“It’s been made painfully obvious that with no teeth in the bill, no teeth in the law, they just blow past it,” Smith said.
Regardless of when the budget is passed, “most districts are going to have to go back in and make different decisions, amend their budgets, do a lot of different things to accommodate the Legislature’s inability to get the budget done,” Spadafore told the Free Press in a June 25 interview.
“If we were actually going to have a date that would get things in the hands of school districts when they needed it, it would be immediately following the May revenue conference,” which is held in early May, he said.
Spadafore said the uncertain budgeting for school districts can have real impacts on students.
Districts have a pretty good idea about the size of the per-pupil foundation grant they will receive, Spadafore said. That’s because budgets passed separately by the House and Senate, which now must be reconciled into one budget the governor will sign, already align with Whitmer’s proposal that the per-pupil grant be increased 2.5%, to $10,300.
But many school districts, particularly those with large numbers of disadvantaged students, rely on other funding streams in the state budget where there is no such agreement, including funds for at-risk students, students who are learning English, literacy coaches and money for school safety.
“So you’ve got school districts that say, ‘Well, we’re going to hold off on class size reduction, we’re going to hold off on literacy coaches, we’re going to hold off on signing school safety contracts, until we know what Lansing is sending us,’ ” Spadafore said. “And those are serious implications.”
House Speaker Matt Hall, R-Richland Township, announced June 23 that he, Whitmer, and Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks, D-Grand Rapids, had signed a framework agreement to move budget talks forward, with agreements there would be no new taxes, no withdrawal from the state Rainy Day Fund and a budget total that was smaller than the current year budget.
Spokespeople for Whitmer and Brinks confirmed the existence of a framework agreement, without confirming details.
Since then, little further progress has been publicly reported, though key state lawmakers and state budget officials were expected to work through the weekend on finalizing budget details.
Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or pegan@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Legislature’s July 1 budget deadline is too late for Michigan schools
Reporting by Paul Egan, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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By Paul Egan, Detroit Free Press | USA TODAY Network
