The governor proposes spending $609 million on education from early childhood to college.
Increased state aid to local education systems will be weighted “to help reduce the disparity between school districts," Gov. Rick Snyder says.
Rick Snyder’s $52-billion budget for fiscal 2015 has a 6.1% boost for Michigan’s 15 public universities — the largest percentage increase in 14 years — and roughly 3 percent more for K-12 public education and community colleges, Chad Livengood and Steve Pardo report at The Detroit News.
The Republican governor, who faces re-election this year and has been dogged by critics over past education spending decisions, proposes $150 million more for the base funding public school districts get, amounting to a per-pupil increase ranging between $83 and $111.
Snyder said Wednesday the increase in per-student funding would be “weighted” toward lower-funded schools “to help reduce the disparity between school districts in foundation dollars.”
The paper gives these other details of the spending plan presented to the House and Senate Appropriations Committees:
- $65 million to enroll another 16,000 four-year-olds in early childhood education
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$8.9 million more for community colleges
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$27.8 million to start a new teacher evaluation program
- A new $7.3 million fund for financially distressed school districts "that could fall into that situation of running out of money during the school year.”
The governor also taped this message:
