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Commentary: Five Easy Questions to Ask School Officials

While the state Legislature debates Gov. Rick Snyder’s $300 per-pupil school aid cut, many public school and union officials have been making the rounds in the media. For many Michigan residents, five easy questions can help make sense of the issue — and reveal where school districts really stand financially.

For starters, here are some examples of the one-sided information presented by the public-school establishment, contrasted with the actual facts:

  • Rochester Schools claimed a cut of $28 million in the last decade; its overall general fund expenditures grew by over $48 million.
  • Utica Community Schools said they cut $65 million since 2002; audit reports show they will spend $53.5 million more in 2011 than in 2002.
  • Midland Public Schools vouched for a cut of $19 million “over the last decade.” But general fund expenditures climbed from $75.1 million in 2000 to $83.8 million in 2010, despite a student enrollment drop from 9,484 in 2001 to 8,466 in 2011.
  • Saline Schools claimed a cut of $6.8 million over three years; records show the district’s total general fund budget actually grew by $600,000.
  • East Grand Rapids sent a letter to legislators claiming to have cut $3.5 million since 2006; its budget grew from $23.8 million to $28.1 million.
  • The Godfrey-Lee Schools superintendent claimed to have just cut $1.4 million; the district’s website shows it spent $2.3 million more in 2011 than 2010.
  • Bay City Schools said it had reduced spending by $24.6 million since 2000; records show the district actually spent $5 million more in 2011 than in 2000.
  • Coleman Schools claimed state government wanted to "cut and cut and cut"; in the meantime, the district has lost 23 percent of its students while spending per pupil increased by 23 percent.

While some school administrators argue that this is merely “a matter of semantics,” for Michigan residents, this information has made it difficult to sort out fact from fiction. To help simplify what can often be an overly complex problem, here are five easy questions anyone can ask their school officials.

1.       Has your district’s overall spending increased over the past decade?

If the district claims to have “cut” by a certain amount, these “cuts” may be covered up by increased spending in other areas.

2.       How much money per pupil did the district receive 10 years ago?

3.       How much money per pupil does the district receive today?

For some districts, it may appear that spending has stagnated or even been cut. However, if a district has significantly fewer students today than in the past (see the example of Midland Public Schools above), overall funds may have decreased while per-pupil spending has risen.

4.       What are the district’s teachers paying toward their health care?

In 2009, public school teachers in 300 Michigan districts paid nothing to the costs of their own health insurance premiums. In fact, the average contribution for a teacher’s family plan is 4 percent, while the Michigan private-sector average is 21 percent, and the average for federal employees in Michigan is about 25 percent.

5.       What is the average salary of a teacher who has been employed by the district for 10 years or more?

Automatic step increases can bring significant pay raises very quickly. See: The Salary History of a Michigan Public School Employee.

Nearly all public school collective bargaining agreements have a “single salary schedule” (or “automatic step increases”) for teacher compensation. The schedule builds in automatic pay raises for employees based only on longevity of employment and the education degree-level achieved. According to Michael Van Beek, the director of education policy for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, “Essentially, this means that teachers would receive a pay increase for every year they remain employed by the district, regardless of their students' performance, the district's financial situation, or the conditions of the state's economy.”

 

As the state budget deadline approaches, and the debate in the legislature continues to heat up, it is increasingly important for Michigan citizens to have all the facts in a simple, concise way. It should also be noted that some districts are using their funds more wisely than others. With these five easy questions for every school official, taxpayers will more easily be able to sort out the difference.

Michigan Capitol Confidential is the news source produced by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Michigan Capitol Confidential reports with a free-market news perspective.

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Does the NLRB Really Expect Businesses to Ignore Strikes?

The National Labor Relations Board’s operations are designed to look to outsiders as if they were judicial in nature. There’s a prosecutor of sorts, the general counsel, and the board’s decisions read like judicial opinions. But in reality, the NLRB operates in a twilight zone — its members are generally representatives of the two main political parties with the majority chosen from the president’s party, and the majority bloc can be relied on to reward its friends and punish its adversaries. There being a Democratic administration in Washington now, it’s time for the unions to get all the close calls. And even the ones that shouldn’t be close.

At the end of March the general counsel brought up a complaint against aircraft manufacturer Boeing for its decision to open up a new assembly line for its 787 “Dreamliner” in North Charleston, S.C. The original line at Boeing’s Puget Sound plant in the state of Washington remains open, but that line has been shut down by two lengthy strikes called by the International Association of Machinists over the last six years. Boeing is hedging its bets by setting up a second line for the popular aircraft at a non-union shop in a state with right-to-work protections for employees. The complaint alleges that Boeing’s actions constituted illegal discrimination against union workers.

On the surface the prosecution has a case. It’s fairly clear that labor relations were a factor in Boeing’s decision to set up shop in South Carolina. The NLRB is supposed to prevent employers from discriminating against employees who engage in “protected activities,” such as joining unions and going on strike.

But to say that Boeing cannot take notice of troubled labor relations at Puget Sound as it makes plans to build more airplanes is to say that Boeing must make itself more vulnerable to a strike, and arguably punishes the South Carolina workers for their apparent preference to remain non-union. Boeing’s South Carolina workers have the right to refrain from unionizing, too, and the NLRB is supposed to protect their rights as well.

It doesn’t help matters that everyone is dealing with a statute, the National Labor Relations Act, that is vague about what companies and unions are actually allowed to do. Unionized workers in Puget Sound still have steady jobs, but there will be less work for them, fewer jobs and less overtime, than there might have been. Is this discrimination? As Robert Verbruggen points out in a recent article at National Review, the general counsel’s complaint against Boeing “comes out of left field,” but it’s still in line with “the murky words of the law itself,” leaving Boeing subject to the caprices of a politicized labor board.

IAM’s wisdom has been dubious, especially from the workers’ perspective. The 2005 strike lasted 28 days. The 2008 strike lasted eight weeks, and according to The New York Times workers missed out on $7,000 in base pay. The Seattle Times accounts from the end of the strike are vague as to whether or not workers benefitted much from the walkout. For its part Boeing likely lost $2 billion on account of the strike.

If the National Labor Relations Board opts to punish Boeing for setting up shop in South Carolina, the result is liable to be that employers will be hamstrung by radicalized union officials, while union officials will be in a position to call strikes with near impunity, giving little regard to benefits for workers or damage to employers.

There are those who would argue that the ultimate purpose of this whole thing is to put the right-to-work movement and less unionized states at a disadvantage by preventing companies from creating new jobs in those states, but this could easily backfire, with new companies afraid to locate in heavily unionized states like Michigan in the first place because the law will make it harder for them to expand elsewhere.

The most likely result is everyone loses. If there’s one thing a struggling American economy does not need, it’s the further empowerment of radical union officials and the disruption of more strikes. Congress should be looking for ways to rein in the National Labor Relations Board and ensure that employers are free to protect themselves from strikes called by radical union officials.

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Paul Kersey is director of labor policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a research and educational institute headquartered in Midland, Mich. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided that the author and the Center are properly cited.

Michigan Capitol Confidential is the news source produced by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Michigan Capitol Confidential reports with a free-market news perspective.