While cognizant that public education needs higher funding levels in Michigan, MEA statewide bargaining consultant Larry MacQueen says many superintendents and school boards continue to sit on piles of money that could be spent to support school programs and to settle employee contracts.
MacQueen charged that at one point K-12 school districts in Michigan had banked around $1.5 billion in fund equity or so-called rainy day funds.
“Certainly, public education needs consistent, stable funding,” MacQueen said,“but we have too many districts with fund balances of well over 30 percent of their total expenditures.
“It’s unconscionable to horde this much money, money that could be used for programs and for bargaining.” MacQueen points to the Standish-Sterling district that had a fund balance equal to 72 percent of its total expenditures—more than $11 million—in 2003- 04, according to data from the Michigan Department of Education.
The Standish-Sterling district recently used hundreds of thousands of dollars in general fund monies stashed away in its fund balance account to build a swimming pool.
It then turned around and asked its employees for major concessions, including an attack on their health care plan, during the current contract negotiations.
“We have districts choosing to keep huge amounts of money in fund equity, like Standish-Sterling, and we have districts with histories of making poor budget decisions, sometimes intentional, that rob their school employees of fair compensation and health benefits,” MacQueen said.
“These misguided and inappropriate expenditures amount to larceny, in effect. We have school boards expecting our members to take concessions to make up for the districts’ mistakes. This ugliness has to stop.”
MacQueen said administrators and school boards need a forceful reminder that K-12 school employees—our teachers and support staff—are on the frontlines helping students achieve.
“They absolutely deserve fair pay and benefits,” he said.
Around the state, settlements for K-12 employees are averaging around 2 percent and for higher education employees close to 3 percent—both figures below the annual cost of living rate increase, MacQueen noted.
“Negotiating higher education contracts presents a different challenge for bargaining team members,” he said, “At that level, because colleges receive funding from multiple sources, administrations can obscure how much money they have available. It’s our job to sort through this, so we can reach a fair settlement.”