LANSING – Public schools and universities might find relief from budget troubles if a petition drive pushed by the Michigan Education Association (MEA) is successful, the union says.

The proposal has four key points, said Karen Schulz, communications consultant for the MEA:

In addition to tying state aid increases to inflation, it would reduce the per-student spending gaps between the richest and poorest schools, cap the money schools spend on retirement costs and help protect funding for districts with decreasing enrollment.

The first component is getting the most attention, and the funding of K-12 public schools, community colleges and public universities would all be affected, said Schulz. It would not affect funding for the Department of Education.

The MEA belongs to the K-16 Coalition for Michigan’s Future, the organizers of the drive. With 163,000 members, the union is the largest and most visible organization helping with the proposal.

According to estimates derived from a Senate Fiscal Agency report, educational funding would have seen an increase of $241.5 million in 2003 if the ballot proposal had already been in effect.

“We recognize that a lot of politicians have said over the years that education is a top priority,” Schulz said. “The problem we have is that in the past three years, K-12 funding hasn’t increased, and state support for universities has gone down.

“What we’re asking the Legislature to do is to put their money where their mouths are. They say education is the top priority, and we say ‘prove it,’” she said.

But Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Midland, the chair of the House School Aid and Department of Education Appropriations Subcommittee, doesn’t see as much of a lack of state aid as some educators claim.

“We recently increased the K-12 budget this year by almost $300 million, and we are currently working on legislation that would bring up the lowest funded districts by an extra $25 per student,” said Moolenaar. “We currently spend almost a third of our state budget on K-12 education, close to $13 billion.”

Schulz said that Michigan’s economic woes don’t excuse the government from providing enough money for education.

“Legislators are elected to their positions so that they can make tough decisions,” Schulz said. “So far, their failure to fix Michigan’s structural funding situation has left a lot of schools without many options to cut costs, and that’s hurting kids.”

Moolenaar agrees that legislators must make tough decisions.

“The citizens have a right to make their views known, and as legislators we make every effort to listen and balance their priorities in state government spending,” Moolenaar said. “An important thing in the budget process is to have public hearings and look at each priority in light of other priorities.

“The question is where would this money come from? Would it come at the expense of other budget priorities, or would it come in the form of higher taxes that might take businesses out of our state,” he said.

Schulz said it should be clear that education is important for Michigan voters, citing a June rally at the Capitol attended by 11,000 people, making it the largest in 30 years.

According to educational professionals, public schools are being hit hard by budget troubles, and they cite data to back them up.

Research by the Michigan School Business Officials found that at least 2,000 positions were eliminated last year, said Executive Director Tom White. Even with Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s $175 increase in per-student funding, Michigan’s school officials did not seem confident about the future.

The survey found that 51 percent of districts said they would still have to lay off employees, and 80 percent said they would reduce staff by not filling vacancies, an increase of 6 percent from the previous year.

Midland-area MEA official director Fred Baker has seen the effects of the budget problems firsthand.

“Sometimes there aren’t even enough chairs for all the students, and the teachers have to hope that someone is absent so that everyone can get a seat,” said Baker. “People believe that this proposal means a tax hike, and it absolutely does not have to mean that.

“Since 1994, we have seen 46 separate tax cuts for various interest groups, and a lot of them are not appropriate at all. If you purchase something at a party store or a regular store, you don’t pay tax on that directly, but the person who sold it to you does. If you buy something out of a vending machine, that’s not taxed, and that means a loss of $19 million annually,” he said.

Moolenaar said that there are two sides to any budget crisis.

“We’re making substantial efforts to improve the funding for districts across the state, but at the same time, there’s the cost-containment side as well,” Moolenaar said. “We need to look at the problem from both angles.”

The petition drive is intended to force a 2006 statewide vote on the proposal if the Legislature doesn’t approve it first.