A recent story in the Lansing State Journal on a Michigan public school choice program featured parents from two different school districts complaining that the program is causing overcrowded classrooms in their own districts.

But data from the Michigan Department of Education show that the complaints are not supported by the historical record. Enrollment at one of those districts has been in decline for the past eight years, while the other has not experienced any significant enrollment increase.

The story focused on how the East Lansing and Holt school districts have benefitted from the schools of choice program begun in the 1990s, mostly by taking students from the academically struggling Lansing school district.

The program allows students to attend a public school located in a nearby district, rather than only the school to which they are assigned, as long as the receiving district says it has slots for extra students. Since under Michigan's school funding system money follows the student, the receiving district gets more state aid, and the student's home district gets less.

In both instances cited by the newspaper report, parents said their home districts were taking too many schools of choice students, which caused their own schools’ classrooms to become overcrowded.

Yet at one of those parent’s home district, Holt in Ingham County, enrollment has been in a general decline since the 2006-07 school year. Holt Public Schools had 5,708 students in 2014-15, which was 285 fewer than in 2006-07. In the most recent school year, it lost 72 students from the previous year.

Actual enrollment at the other so-called overcrowded district, East Lansing, also contradicts the claim. East Lansing Public Schools had 3,503 students in 2014-15, which was just seven more than the previous year, and 35 fewer students than in 2012-13. In 2005-06, the district had 3,467 students, meaning enrollment has remained fairly stable over the past 10 years.

Michael Van Beek, the director of research at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, said if there was overcrowding the blame lies with administrators, because they can limit the number of students they accept from nearby schools.

“School districts have complete control over how many students come into their district,” Van Beek said. “It’s not like they open the doors and say, ‘Alright. Come on in.’ Instead, it’s, ‘We have room for seven kindergartners and 10 first-graders.’ That is how public schools of choice works.”

Van Beek said the Lansing School District has demonstrated a more constructive response to the challenge, which the article described as follows:

“Lansing Superintendent Yvonne Caamal Canul said the district is offering more options than neighboring districts and has changed the way students in the district choose schools.

“Lansing is abandoning the neighborhood school model. Instead, parents are encouraged to identify what subjects interest their children and pick a school within the district accordingly.

“For students interested in math and science, Lansing has elementary and middle schools with STEM-focused curriculum. Children who want to study dance or theater can attend the Pleasant View Visual and Performing Arts Academy. The district also offers Spanish and Chinese language immersion programs starting in elementary school and continuing through high school.”

Van Beek said schools of choice is beneficial not only because it lets parents find schools that better fit their children’s needs, but because it also creates an incentive for neighboring school districts to raise their own game.

“It puts pressure on districts like Lansing to either improve their performance or just accept a continuing flight of students — and the state dollars attached to them,” he said

Contrast Lansing’s positive response to that of Albion Public Schools, where earlier this year Superintendent Jerri-Lynn Williams-Harper wrote a letter to nearby districts telling them to “cease and desist immediately” from providing transportation to Albion students who enrolled with them.

Under the 1996 law that created the cross-district program, parents are allowed to place their children in any school included in their local intermediate school district without having to get permission from their home district. Schools of choice was expanded in 1999 to include neighboring ISDs.

Michigan taxpayers and voters were surprised earlier this year as the bill for business subsidies handed out years ago came due higher than expected.

It sent legislators scurrying to figure out what to do about the cost of a corporate welfare program begun in 1995. So far, they have come up empty. Nevertheless, there is one loophole that should be explored. It can lower the expense of these incentives while also making Michigan a more inviting place for businesses. Michigan can reduce the generosity of its existing business subsidies by lowering the state’s personal income tax rate.

Before 2012, the state’s primary business subsidy program was the Michigan Economic Growth Authority program. It offered refundable tax credits to businesses that located, expanded or retained jobs in Michigan. For many companies, the value of its credits tended to be larger than its tax liability, so the credits were a transfer from taxpayers' money.

The tax credit program was then replaced with a direct subsidy program. But each of the credit deals remains in place over the term of its agreement, and those agreements can extend up to 20 years.

A company that received one of these deals earned credits for each person it employed or retained. The credit was based on a formula that multiplied what the employee was paid by the state’s personal income tax rate. A higher salary — and a higher tax rate — meant a greater tax credit.

This means that when the state raised its income tax from 3.9 percent to 4.35 percent in 2007, it also made these deals 11.5 percent more expensive. On the other hand, lowering the tax rate would make these credits less burdensome to the state budget.

There are a reported $9.4 billion in outstanding credits, though some specialty credits like those for producers of electric vehicle batteries do not involve the state’s income tax rate. These billions will be cashed in over the life of the agreements. It is expected that in the upcoming year, some $807 million in credits will be paid out.

The magnitude of these credits suggests that lowering the state income tax rate would be less costly to the state budget than it would otherwise. The Senate Fiscal Agency expects that reducing the state’s income tax from 4.25 percent to 4.15 percent would save taxpayers between $150 million and $230 million and thus cost the state budget the same amount. But lowering the income tax would also lower the impact of MEGA credits by $10 million to $15 million. This impact would not be felt until the year after the tax is lowered, as companies need to certify their activities before they claim credits that are redeemed later.

Lowering the personal income tax rate could also promote economic growth. (Many businesses report their income on personal income tax forms.) Reducing the tax rate on the next dollar of income encourages more businesses to open or expand.

Reducing tax rates is also a better approach to improving the state’s economy than handing out selective favors. Instead of paying massive sums to select beneficiaries, lowering the income tax would lighten the burdens on everyone.

Besides, select subsidies are of questionable effectiveness.

Legislators are grappling with the state’s fiscal situation, which is made worse by the extra expense of the state’s corporate subsidies. They should keep in mind that reducing the tax burden on everyone would also lower the generosity of corporate tax credits. This would mitigate the costs of legacy programs and make Michigan a more encouraging place to do business and employ residents.