Superintendents continue call for an on-time budget, keeping School Aid dollars to K-12
MI
Apr 23, 2026
To view the article and share with your team, sign-up here on stateaffairs.com!
Key Points
Superintendents urge lawmakers to pass 2026-27 budget by July 1 deadline, but say June 1 is doable
K-12 Alliance and superintendents called on the Legislature to stop diverting School Aid Fund dollars to non-public school expenses
New polling suggests lawmakers' use of School Aid Fund dollars for other purposes is highly unpopular
Superintendents from across Michigan began the call Thursday for lawmakers to pass the 2026-27 budget by the beginning of summer so local districts can plan for the next school year.
During a virtual press conference hosted by the K-12 Alliance of Michigan, superintendents also criticized the use of School Aid Fund for higher education. The budgets proposed by the House and Senate both use School Aid Fund for universities and community colleges.
“We all enjoy strong partnerships with the institutions of higher education. That said, K-12 has a responsibility to provide a free and appropriate public education. That means that we are dependent upon the budget that is delivered to us from the state of Michigan,” Marquette-Alger RESA Superintendent Gregory Nyen said. “Our higher education partners (can) increase tuition to cover their costs. We don't have that luxury. Locally, right now, this conversation is front and center as our higher ed partner in our backyard is building beautiful new structures and our largest (school district) is going for a $60 million bond to cover infrastructure improvements that are probably two or three decades behind schedule.”
Oakland Schools Superintendent Ken Gutman described the practice of diverting dollars from the School Aid Fund to line items that, prior to 2009, were covered by the General Fund as lawmakers “making our kids pay for their mistakes.”
“In the current budget, more than $1.3 billion in SAF dollars are going somewhere other than K-12 schools, that is more than $900 per pupil in lost funding for every school in Michigan. If that money were going where voters intended it to go, every single school in this state would have $900 more per student to invest in classrooms – that could mean countless additional teachers, reading coaches, tutors, social workers and other staff in our classrooms year after year that simply are not, but not because the funding isn't there,” Gutman said. “It is, but because Lansing chooses to take that funding away, (because) they've mismanaged the state's General Fund so broadly over the past two decades, they can't find the funding they need for the programs they want to pay for without taking it from our students.”
In a year where lawmakers have sharpened their focus on education issues, particularly literacy, and raised concerns about low reading scores or Michigan’s position in various national education rankings, the superintendents said the continued willingness to ask more of educators while still withholding funds that are constitutionally promised to public schools is especially grating.
“We have collectively been operating with one hand tied behind our backs, and we're being asked to deliver results under conditions that no other organization, public or private, would find acceptable,” Saginaw ISD Superintendent Jeffrey Collier said.
The superintendents said they’d like to see a budget passed on time first and foremost and challenged lawmakers to get it done by June 1 to give schools more time to plan before the next school year begins. After that, they hope to see movement towards rectifying the use of School Aid Fund dollars for non-K-12 appropriations, furthering of the weighted funding model included in the executive and Senate proposals and for lawmakers to provide funding increases that keep pace with inflation.
They believe these goals are achievable, they said, if lawmakers commit to one other ask: make the budget process, or at least the final leg of it, more transparent.
“Let the people who run schools actually see the budget before it becomes law,” Nyen said.
Recalling how the conference reports for both regular and school aid omnibus bills were made public only shortly before lawmakers voted on them in October of 2025, the superintendents said the current tradition of making a mad dash to passage once a deal is reached makes it not only impossible for stakeholders to know what’s in the massive pieces of legislation, but sometimes difficult for the lawmakers themselves to understand what they’re being asked to vote on.
A Glengariff poll commissioned by the K-12 Alliance of Michigan and conducted in March surveyed likely voters in the 2026 midterm elections about their local schools, state policy surrounding education and reforms they’d support in the future.
Education groups and school leaders have been making the argument for years that it’s better for lawmakers to spend on K-12 funding than to cut taxes – and to the excitement of several Michigan superintendents, the polling data suggests voters feel the same way.
The response superintendents said shows lawmakers are wildly out of touch with their constituents: when asked to choose between cutting property taxes and funding K-12 public schools, voters chose schools, 57% to 35%. That preference, pollsters said, held across age groups, with respondents aged 50-64 being the only group surveyed where a majority said cutting property taxes was a higher priority for them.
Preference for school funding over property tax cuts was also popular with independent voters: while respondents who identified as Democrats or Republicans were split mostly along party lines (74% of strong Democrats valued school funding more, 61% of strong Republicans valued tax cuts) about the issue, 61% of independent respondents said they prioritized school funding more.
Independent voters again aligned more with Democrats on whether K-12 funding would do more to strengthen their local economy than a property tax cut. Roughly 68% of both strong and lean Democrats said education funding would be more beneficial, as did 60% of independents. The numbers for Republicans were almost inverted, with between 65% and 68% of Republicans saying property tax cuts would be more helpful and between 28% and 33% saying school funding would be do more.
71% of voters said they’d be more likely to vote for an elected official who voted to make sure every dollar in the School Aid fund went to public schools. 50.7% said they were “much more likely” to vote for that official, while only 22% said it would make no difference to them.
“Voters understand that strong schools are the foundation of a strong community. They attract families, they support property values, and they build the skilled workforce that employers need and want,” Wayne RESA Superintendent Daveda Coleman said. “Voters are telling Lansing one thing, to maximize the amount of money going to our local public schools, while it appears in some cases, Lansing tends to do the opposite. The public’s priorities and Lansing’s actions appear to be slightly misaligned, as evidenced by the last couple years.”
The release of the poll’s results coincided with budget proposals being shepherded through the first steps of the appropriations process this week in both chambers of the Legislature, which the superintendents said was a positive sign for getting a state budget passed before the statutory deadline of July 1.
Concerns still linger, though, about what lawmakers have put forward: both the House and Senate proposals use School Aid Fund dollars for non-K-12 appropriations in university or community college budgets.
Glengariff polled the use of School Aid Fund for higher education, as well: 78% of voters oppose the Legislature using the School Aid Fund for anything except K-12 schools. 60% strongly oppose the practice, which began in 2009 and has become commonplace.
Pollsters told respondents that the current school aid budget was put to a vote “minutes after the bill was presented, without giving any school officials the opportunity to read the bill before passage” and were asked about implementing a waiting period to allow parents, educators and administrators the time to read final budget bills.
93% of respondents said they would support legislation to enforce a 24-hour waiting period before passing a budget bill.