This month the Grosse Pointe Public School communities renewed two millages that constitute about 25% of the district’s operating budgets. The Hold Harmless (referenced in below as “HH”) represents about $23 million in annual revenue. The Sinking Fund (“SF”) delivers about $2.5 million. They are both important, but clearly losing the HH would be far worse than losing the SF.
The 2014 renewals generally reflect the community understands their importance. Each of the six voting communities passed both at similar proportions within their cities, but oddly the SF passed at a slightly higher overall rate than the HH millage.
Also worth noting is the higher passage rate of the millages in the City, Farms and Park in comparison to the Woods, Harper Woods and the Shores. The City’s passage rate of the HH was a 15.7% percentage points higher than the Shores.
The pattern was different in 2009 when the HH received stronger support than the SF.
As we look at the comparison of the HH elections from 2009 to 2014, the gradation across the cities follows the same pattern, but more noteworthy is a significant reduction in the overall passage rate, that dropped from 77.4% in 2009 to 70.5% in 2014.
Oddly the SF did not experience the same degradation of support from 2009 to 2014 with both years showing a near identical passage rate.
Between this comparison and the otherwise proportionally consistency across the communities, there was something about the HH millage question this year that induced a decrease in support.