News, Culture and NPR for Central & Northern Michigan
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
91.7FM Alpena and WCML-TV Channel 6 Alpena are off the air. Click here to learn more.

Michigan State School Funding will look more equal next year

Money by free pictures of money is licensed under CC BY 2.0

State funding for Michigan school districts will look a little more equal next year. Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed a new school budget bill Tuesday that eliminates longstanding funding gaps between districts.

Since 1994, the state has used a formula to decide the minimum each public-school district gets per student, and in the past, that formula created unequal funding between districts. The gap has been getting smaller.

But on Tuesday, the governor signed a school aid budget in which all schools will get the same minimum, $87 hundred dollars per student.

“We are eliminating the funding gap between schools without raising taxes. This was a promise from 1994 when we passed proposal A.”

The overall bill calls for more than 17 billion in spending.