(Source: MIRS.news, Published 02/13/2024) The State Board of Education tabled a resolution Tuesday that would oppose portions of the Fiscal year 2025 budget proposed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and heard highlights that would pull literacy supports from the department.
Republican Tom McMillin introduced the resolution to oppose transferring $414.5 million in federal childcare payments from the Department of Education to the Michigan Department of Lifelong Education, Advancement and Potential, and the transfer of $15.7 million to fund 77 positions in the MiLEAP Office of Great Start.
After a presentation regarding the budget from MDE Deputy Superintendent of Finance and Operations Diane Golzynski, State Superintendent Michael Rice discussed what was leaving the MDE and heading to MiLEAP.
McMillin asked if there was a line that was crossed by employees being pulled from the department, and now with more being pulled, along with funding, if Whitmer had crossed a constitutional line.
“Could we get to zero FTEs and you’d be fine with that, and you’d see no problem?" he asked.
Rice said he wasn’t a lawyer and there were already several lines crossed, but not to what McMillin was saying.
“One is about decorum. The second is about constitutionality and the third is about policy. With respect to policy, I’m in disagreement with the establishment of the new department to be very clear and with respect to constitutionality. I’ll leave that to the AG to make that determination. That’s her role. It’s her decision,” Rice said.
Prior to the discussion, Rice said the department was responsible for 20% of the budget and only made up 1% of the state’s workforce.
The proposed budget would cut the Department of Education’s budget by 74% and Rice has already submitted a letter to Attorney General Dana Nessel , who has said the executive order had not yet crossed into the constitutional realm of the Department of e\Education.
McMillin said Whitmer has “a bigger bully pulpit” and more budget control, but that she still had to listen to the courts if any constitutional line was crossed and because of the money being set aside for legal assistance, he said she was most likely anticipating someone challenging MiLEAP.
“Where people are telling us, particularly administrators telling elected officials, ‘Wait, wait, now is not the time to act.’ Then all of a sudden, ‘Oops, too late. Sorry, now it’s too late to act, no use looking backward,’ It’s (a) fait accompli,” McMillin said.
He said now was the time to act, and said the board should be going back to Nessel.
Nikki Snyder, the other Republican board members, also said the board should be fighting MiLEAP and the constitutionality of that department, especially over the issue of literacy, which falls under the purview of K-12 education.
”We’re getting in the midst of the process we’re putting into place, while we take a brand new bureaucratic body and say, ‘Let's share responsibilities,' while we’re already underfunded over here? Nothing should infuriate us more than the concept that we have a state superintendent that isn’t fighting,” Snyder said.
She said this is a subject that should unite the body in one course of action over the issue of constitutionality.
“We should come together for the first time in a very long time and fight this,” she said.
Democratic board member and board president Pamala PUGH said she would agree if literacy was indeed being taken from the department.
“I think MiLEAP harms the department and harms us from doing what we need to do, which is to provide instruction for Michigan’s 1.4 million school children,” Pugh said.
She then proposed tabling McMillin’s resolution until the March meeting.
Rice said the board has invited MiLEAP leadership to the state board meeting for the last three months to get a presentation about the new department, but it has yet to happen.
“I think we could table it to the next meeting, but I think we need to act,” McMillin said.
Board member Tiffany Tilley said MiLEAP gave the board a five-page PowerPoint presentation about the department instead of them coming before the board.
“A very small PowerPointhat did not have much information on it at all. Hopefully, they don’t think that will suffice,” Tilley said.
