State Board of Education Passes Resolution
Tuesday after much public testimony, the Board took action supporting the need to head off cuts to education by a variety of methods. Those testifying included William Mayes, Executive Director of MASA.

"I believe that we are so at a pivotal point in this state's history that if we don't address the revenue issue, we do not have enough money to operate what we believe in," said Bill Mayes , Executive Director of the Michigan Association of School Administrators.   "We know it's important; we believe it's important; we feel it's important," he said of the current school programs.

After discussion the Board passed the resolution with a 6-1 vote. Items included in the resolution include: revenue, reform and investment.

View the resolution here>

Other action by the Board included approval of the new criteria for the currently more than 200 supplemental service providers. Until now there were no requirements that had to be met. Companies were simply added to the list of stat-authorized vendors, kept by the MDE. The companies will now have to show they meet the new criteria every two years.

Senate Appropriations Committee Rejects the Governor’s Executive Order
In a party line vote this week the Senate Appropriations Committee headed by Senator Mike Bishop rejected the Executive Order saying there were not enough cuts included. The plan included $200 million in cuts; a large part being the reduction in retirement rates.

The rejection of the executive order opens the possibilities that cuts would be forced to school funding, something that Ms. Granholm said in her State of the State address last week she was opposed to doing.  Under statute, the Governor must notify the Legislature within 30 days of when she would next issue an executive order cut. More to come next week!

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Brad Biladeau
(517) 327-9265
bbiladeau@gomasa.org