Michigan’s public schools have racked up $19.7 billion in long-term debt — mostly due to construction costs — but aided by the state of Michigan, which loans the districts money to make bond payments the districts couldn’t otherwise afford to make.

Michigan schools also owe the state $1 billion from loans the state has given districts to help pay their bond payments as part of the Michigan School Bond Qualification and Loan Program.

The nearly $20 billion in long-term debt owed by schools is more than the $12 billion the state of Michigan’s budgets for public schools in one year.

The state ranks 5^th nationally in per-student amount of long-term debt. Michigan has $13,000 per-student in long-term debt, according to 2008-09 figures from the National Center for Education Statistics, the latest year data is available. On average, the U.S. has $8,400 per student in long-term debt.

"Taxpayers should be concerned with the amount of debt that Michigan school districts are accumulating,” said Michael Van Beek, the education policy director at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. “If these trends continue, they'll be on the hook for decades to come for school loans from decades before.”

Most of the long-term debt is due to capital costs incurred from construction.

For example, the Chippewa Valley School District has been borrowing money from the state of Michigan for 45 years and owes $120 million, according to Terry Stanton, spokesman for the state treasury department. Chippewa Valley levies residents 7.65 mills to pay part of its bond debt and borrows the rest from the state, Stanton said.

Chippewa Valley has grown from 9,450 students in 1992 to 16,284 in 2012. In the last 20 years, the district stated it has added eight school buildings, an alternative education center and an early childhood center.

But Van Beek notes that the trend in Michigan is for shrinking districts. There were 1.64 million students in the state in 2001-02. That has dropped to 1.43 million in 2012.

Van Beek notes there's also a built-in hazard of the state’s loan program — schools have to ask for at least 7 mills to qualify for the loan.

“It enables school districts to take out bonds for which they know they can’t pay the bond payments on,” Van Beek said. “It encourages schools to continue to build new buildings and to take out loans that they aren’t able to support.”

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See also:

Teacher Contract Analysis

Coverage of School District Claiming Cuts

Helpful Facts About Michigan's Public Sector

Mackinac Center senior investigative analyst Anne Schieber has a frightening new video about the continued fleecing of home health care workers ensnared in an ongoing forced unionization scheme.

At its best, government exists to protect the rights of its citizens: To establish a rule of law that applies equally to everyone and have clear rules that are easily known and followed. This scheme adheres to none of those principles.

In documenting the complex twists-and-turns of the “dues skim,” Schieber’s video truly captures government breech of trust at its worst.

The backers of the forced unionization claim they sent voting ballots to 56,000 “employees,” but more than 80 percent did not vote. Sixty-seven percent of those who were unionized through the scheme are actually caring for disabled relatives, indirectly compensated by Medicaid, according to the Michigan Quality Community Care Council. Yet the ballot that was sent applies to "employees," with no mention of family members.

“Why are they taking money from us for taking care of our kids in the form of union dues?” Robert Haynes, a retired Detroit police officer who looks after his two adult children with cerebral palsy asked in the video.

The scheme goes on despite the fact that the so-called employer created to enable the stealth unionization, the Michigan Quality Community Care Council, has been defunded by the legislature. Its current address is the same Detroit building that houses the SEIU — the same union collecting the skimmed dues. No one from the group returns phone calls.

Last June the Michigan House passed House Bill 4003 to end the forced unionization. But the Michigan Senate, with a historic 26-12 Republican majority, continues to sit on its hands, failing to pass the bill while the SEIU takes money from special needs children and adults.

Sen. Roger Kahn, R-Saginaw, received $5,000 from the SEIU on the day the bill to end the “forced unionization” arrived in the Senate.

Meanwhile, the origins of the scheme have been connected to a former ACORN organizer. And the dues keep flowing: More than $29 million has been taken from the pockets of hardworking parents and put in to the coffers of the SEIU to be used as they wish.

“They’re charging us dues and we’re getting no benefits,” said Patricia Haynes, Robert’s wife.

It is impossible to conclude this scheme benefits the people Michigan in any way. It is simply indefensible.

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