k12christinestead

Highland Park was appointed an Emergency Finanacial Manager (EFM) by Governor Snyder, per the new Emergency Financial Manager Legislation.  The EFM then violated the Open Meetings Act (OMA) in how they conducted their initial meetings.  A judge ruled that, not only did the EFM violate the OMA in its proceedings, but that the assigned EFM must step down, as the appointment was made in a manner that also violated the OMA.

More worrisome is the manner in which ‘support’ from Lansing and the new EFM law are playing out – and the trend that more and more districts will likely go through this process in the years ahead, thanks to significant cuts to K12 education. 

A Detroit Free Press article quotes Snyder as saying that the  Highland Park district is likely to have a ’payless payday’ this Friday as a result of the court ruling: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120221/SCHOOLS/202210425/1026/schools/Snyder-says-Highland-Park-schools-EM-must-step-down.  What he doesn’t do is acknowledge and take ownership of how the flawed process wasted precious time for the district, creating the potential for a ‘payless payday’ on Friday. 

This kind of ‘support’ we can all do without.

Worse – the list of districts in the degree of financial difficulty that warrants reviews from the state is only growing.  That list now includes 48 school districts.  We’ll see the list increase as each district has to either pass more deficit budgets, as Saline just did, or continue making inordinate cuts that hurt education.  Snyder also doesn’t take any accountability for placing districts in this situation, which is primarily a direct result of the FY12 budget, likely FY13 budget and FY14 budget.  Funding for K12 education is less than last year’s and yet the unfunded mandates increased substantially last year.

Anyone else have concerns about this?