News Story

Taxpayers rejecting pricier school bonds

Bond issue asking prices doubled over 24 years, but more spending hasn’t brought better academic results

Michigan taxpayers are rejecting more school bond issues compared to the beginning of the century, when the average debt request was less than half the current level.

The average school bond issue request increased from $21.7 million in 2000 to $44.6 million in 2024.

School districts usually ask for around 40-60 bonds annually, according to a Michigan Capitol Confidential review of a state website that tracks school bonds since 1996.

Michigan schools have asked voters to approve 60 school bonds so far this year. Voters approved 29 and rejected 32. Voters will decide another 22 school bond questions on Nov. 5, 2024, with the average request seeking $40 million.

In 2020, schools asked voters to approve 61 school bonds. Of those, 48 passed and 13 failed, giving school officials a success rate of 78%. The average school bond request then was $40.6 million.

In 2013, schools asked for 43 bond proposals with an average request of $16 million. Of those, voters approved 32, with an average of $17 million approved. They rejected 11, with an average dollar amount of $14 million.

In 2004, voters approved 45 school bonds and rejected 28 bonds at an average ask of $34M.

There are several reasons why bonds fail more often now than before, Leon Drolet, Macomb Township Treasurer, told Michigan Capital Confidential. Absentee voting allows groups opposed to school bonds to track and oppose measures by mailing pamphlets to voters on the same day they receive the ballots.

“There’s an increasing percentage of people who believe that the schools are becoming partisan as well,” Drolet said in a phone interview. “It may be that 20 years ago, people perceived their schools as a neutral entity that educates children... I think a lot of folks, whether through social media or another mechanism, have come to believe that schools are falling in line with more of a left-leaning worldview.”

Michigan schools received $5.6 billion in COVID funds and are now trying to sustain spending levels that have skyrocketed since the turn of the century.

In fiscal year 2000-2001, Michigan’s spending on the School Aid Fund reached $10.8 billion. By fiscal year 2023-24, spending had more than doubled to $21 billion, according to the nonpartisan Senate Fiscal Agency.

Higher school spending is also following fewer Michigan students as birth rates drop. More than 1.6 million students attended schools in 2010 compared to 1.4 million students in 2024, Michigan Department of Education data show.

Mischooldata.org

Although funding is up, academic performance has dropped.

In Detroit, 90% of students in public elementary and middle school are either not proficient or only partially proficient in English, according to Molly Macek, education policy director at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Only 5% of eighth graders are proficient in math.

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.

News Story

House bill would bring back rejected ergonomic standards

Government could impose a $250 fine for each aggrieved employee

Michigan employers would have to provide suitable seats for employees or face a $250 fine under a new bill introduced in Lansing.

House Bill 5983, introduced by Dylan Wegela, D-Garden City, would require “employers to provide suitable seats for employees under certain circumstances.”

The Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity could impose a $250 fine for each aggrieved employee covered by the law every two weeks.

The bill specifies ergonomic seating is required “at a location that is owned, leased, or operated by or under the control of the employer.” The bill introduced in September does not stipulate that proper seating would be required for people working at home for a business.

”If you've ever worked a job where you stand for hours on end for no reason, you know how common sense reasonable seating is,” Wegela told Michigan Capitol Confidential in an email. He asked why cashiers, for example, must stand when they could do the job seated.

“In an era of stock buy-backs and record corporate profits, I find it hard to believe there are businesses that can’t afford a chair or two for workers who generate their wealth in the first place,” Wegela wrote.

Former Gov. Jennifer Granholm tried to impose ergonomic standards in the early 2000s. The Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Administration formed a working group in 2005 to craft ergonomic rules for businesses.

Congress overturned federal ergonomics regulations in 2001. Implementing them in Michigan would have cost the state’s private sector between $264 and $496 million, according to a 2005 Mackinac Center news story.

In 2010, Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Snyder told Michigan Capitol Confidential that the state was ”on the brink of cranking out destructive ergonomics regulations.”

The next year saw legislation to prohibit the state from imposing workplace ergonomic regulations. It died in committee.

This bill was referred to the Committee on Labor.

Michigan’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration discusses ergonomics standards on its website. The agency ”does not have an ergonomic enforcement standard,” the fact sheet says, but it has the authority to enforce state law ”when necessary to prevent workplace-related ergonomic injuries or illnesses.”

The House Fiscal Agency has not analyzed the legislation, so the associated costs for business are unclear.

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.