LANSING, Mich. — Michigan’s school superintendent said Thursday that K-12 districts are confronting the possibility of staggering spending cuts amid the coronavirus pandemic unless Congress helps fill a nearly $2.4 billion revenue shortfall over this budget year and next.
A divided state Supreme Court, meanwhile, declined to expedite an appeal in the Republican-led Legislature’s lawsuit challenging Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s stay-at-home restrictions. A judge had ruled in her favor two weeks ago.
Superintendent Michael Rice said the largest reduction in per-student funding under the current finance system came in 2011, at $470. A $1 billion cut to the school aid fund would result in $685 less per pupil, he said.
“Yet the cut could be even greater and substantially greater and much more harmful,” he told reporters.
Districts are facing a July 1 deadline to enact budgets for the coming academic year. The state likely will cut their payments without an additional federal relief bill or flexibility to use previously enacted federal aid to fill revenue holes.
“Congress is the only entity that has the capability of substantially sparing our children from very profound cuts,” Rice said.
The state high court voted 4-3 to deny lawmakers’ request to bypass the Court of Appeals and hear their suit contesting her use of emergency powers during the pandemic. Whitmer had also asked the Supreme Court to intervene.
Justice Richard Bernstein noted that Whitmer earlier this week lifted her stay-home order.
“While recognizing that not all restrictions have been lessened (and acknowledging the possibility of future restrictions being reimplemented), I believe the parties and this Court would benefit most from having the vital constitutional issues of this case fully argued in the Court of Appeals before receiving a final determination from our Court,” he wrote. Chief Justice Bridget McCormack and Justices Megan Cavanagh and Elizabeth Clement also agreed to wait.
Three justices, Stephen Markman, David Viviano and Brian Zahra, said the appeals court should be skipped.
“By our decision to deny the applications for bypass, we bypass an exercise of authority to decide what is perhaps the most substantial dispute ever presented to this Court, not only diminishing our standing among the judicial institutions of our federal system but diminishing our relevance within the judicial institutions of this state itself,” Markman wrote.
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