State Rep. Dylan Wegela (D-Garden City) | Ken Coleman
State Rep. Dylan Wegela (D-Garden City) on Tuesday introduced a bill to raise corporate taxes and do away with spending requirements for a program aimed at attracting businesses to Michigan, instead putting the funding toward Michigan schools.
“Strong public schools are the centerpiece of strong communities. Over the past several decades we have seen continued attempts to underfund and undermine our public schools and their employees. This attempt to dismantle and privatize education has led to Michigan public schools facing a $4.5 billion funding gap according to research from the Education Law Center. While I am proud of the work we have done in the legislature to increase investments in our students and teachers, we need to do more,” said Wegela, a former teacher and union organizer.
Both chambers of the Michigan Legislature are controlled by Democrats. However, Republicans will assume the majority in the House in January, following the results of last week’s election.
$83B state budget heads to Whitmer’s desk after all-night session
The Democratic-led Legislature previously caught flack for not increasing the state’s per-pupil allowance in the education budget for Fiscal Year 2025.
Instead, lawmakers decreased rates paid to the Michigan Public School Employees’ Retirement System (MPSERS) in an effort to redirect $670 million from the system into additional schools funds, which Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration said was freed up by paying off certain liabilities early.
This offset reallocated $598 million in reimbursements back to schools, with Whitmer’s office saying the reimbursements are equivalent to a 4% increase in funding per pupil, averaging a $400 increase per pupil compared to the amount included in the budget for Fiscal Year 2024.
Alongside concerns of the per-pupil allocation, educators also called on the legislature to pass additional funding for school safety, with the FY 2025 budget allocating $26.5 million in grants for per-pupil mental health and school safety compared to the $328 million included in the previous FY 2024 budget.
While lawmakers noted in the final budget bill that the funding freed up from MPSERS reimbursements be “used to support student mental health, school safety, the educator workforce and academic interventions,” Republicans remained critical of the decrease in funds.
Democratic legislators later put forth a $126 million budget supplemental to support school safety, which Whitmer signed on Oct.10. However some Republicans remained critical of the efforts, as GOP members of the House and Senate had each put forth proposals to restore school safety funding to match last year’s budget.
Wegela’s House Bill 6105, which is not yet online, would raise the corporate income tax rate from 6% to 10% and eliminate a $500 million spending requirement from the Strategic Outreach and Attraction Reserve (SOAR) Fund.
“To put this into context: if all of this funding was given directly to Michigan’s roughly 98,058 Instructional Staff Members as a salary raise, each Instructional staff member could receive upwards of a $20,000 raise,” Wegela said in a statement.
“Right now what we are seeing in Lansing is the mismanagement of our tax dollars. Over the past several years we have seen billions of taxpayer dollars funneled to multi-billion dollar corporations. This has only exacerbated our historic levels of wealth inequality,” Wegela said.
House Republicans have previously raised concerns with accountability measures on SOAR funding, with Rep. Sarah Lightner (R-Springport) previously releasing a statement arguing the fund “fails to provide the necessary safeguards and oversight required to ensure that companies deliver on their promises” in its current state.
As part of their economic growth plan released earlier this year, Republicans called on the state to “audit payouts, reclaim funds when deals don’t deliver on their promises, increase transparency about paused projects, and require votes by all the people’s representatives” on all large-scale projects funded through SOAR.
A House GOP spokesperson did not return a request for comment on Wegela’s legislation.
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