At Monday’s Board of Education Meeting the Board took action to set the 2010-11 Tax Rates for locally influenced school related taxes. Everyone knows what a hot button taxes are these days and it is one of the more important functions of the Board of Education to set such rates.
Taxpayers tend to assume that taxes always go up. Recently we have seen this has not been the case with certain property taxes as taxable value has dropped all across the country. But Michigan has some unique tax codes that have actually been delivering tax relief for several years given certain conditions.
Understanding how Michigan funds public schools and how locally we derive revenue is a critical skill for a Board member who is required to make policy and financial decisions. Not only have I taken a great deal of time to understand these issues well, I have also worked hard to educate district taxpayers so they can better understand how this all works. By doing so they may better understand why certain decisions must be made.
Here is the presentation I made at Monday’s meeting prior to our action on the Tax Levy rate:
GPPSS Financial Transparency Series_2010-11 Tax Levy
Among the highlights to call out:
- GPPSS enrollment has dropped 9.6% since its high water mark in 2003. Enrollment is our biggest driver for revenue.
- Despite that drop, our enrollment is still 8.8% higher than 1991
- Our year over year enrollment changes since 1999 have generally followed the pattern of statewide enrollment. Point being, our change is not unique. (More later, but drops in local private school enrollment are much more pronounced over this period.)
- Proposal A adjusts taxes with enrollment on the logical assumption that fewer students to educate should cost less.
- Local property tax millage rates now are almost 50% lower than before Proposal A.
- In real dollars, local school based property tax revenues are substantially lower than 1999 levels.
- Both our pupil to teacher ratio and our average elementary class size is more favorable now than it was before Proposal A.
- GPPSS is the 31st largest school district in the state (out of 775). We rank 44th in revenue per pupil, but 29th in total instructional expenditure per pupil and 381st in administrative expenditure per pupil.
- Our local taxes and fees collected from district taxpayers is down $1 million from last year and $2 million from 2006-7 levels.
- Our state tax revenues are down $6.4 million from 2007-8 levels.
- Our General Fund Expenditures, which must mirror our reduction in revenues, are down $9.2 million from 2007-8 levels.
Let that last point sink in for a moment. That’s a nearly 10% reduction in tax dollar expenditure, which may be fairly consistent with many Michigan public school districts. Yet our metrics show our instructional expenditures and instructional staff ratios, in many ways, are better than before Proposal A was passed. We haven’t closed or merged schools. We haven’t outsourced custodians. We haven’t raised participation fees in my five years on the Board. In fact, I helped spearhead greater taxpayer relief by making the All Day Kindergarten option the default with no fee associated.
In election season, you’ll hear many promises. You’ll hear lots of opinions. I’ll choose to point at real numbers and ask you to decide. How much better could we have navigated these treacherous waters? How much better of a job did we do compared to other school districts? How much better positioned are we for the future?
I’m obviously biased, but I can tell you I would not trade our position with any district in this state. Not one.
Brendan