K-12 Alliance Applauds Senate Passage of Bill Lowering Debt Burden on Schools, Students

SB 911 would permanently lower MPSERS Debt Payments for Schools

LANSING, Mich., Sept. 17, 2024— Following the passage of Senate Bill 911 by the Michigan Senate, the K-12 Alliance of Michigan released the following statement about the long-term positive impact it will have on school funding.

“We are grateful to the Michigan Senate for engaging in an ongoing dialogue with educators about the importance of responsibly and permanently reducing these decades-old debt payments that have been forced on our schools and students,” said Al Latosz, Superintendent of Algonac Community Schools and President of The K-12 Alliance of Michigan. “The passage of SB 911 will free up hundreds of millions of dollars annually that schools across Michigan will be able to invest directly into the programs that support the needs of our students.”

It was announced earlier this year that the Other Post-Employment Benefits (OPEB) portion of the Michigan Public School Employees Retirement System (MPSERS) was not only no longer in debt, but was overfunded to the point that school payments into the system could be permanently lowered without impacting the long-term stability of the fund. Lowering this rate would permanently reduce the amount of money traditional public schools must pay out of their budgets toward the overall MPSERS debt, allowing them to keep that money in their districts to be spent on additional teachers, support staff and student programming.

The majority of Michigan’s charter schools are not required to make these same debt payments into the MPSERS system, therefore, lowering the rate for traditional public schools also puts their funding closer to a level playing field with their charter school counterparts.

“The Senate’s passage of SB 911 today marks a significant step forward for public education funding in Michigan and will not only allow our schools to immediately invest additional resources toward the success of their students, but will continue to do so for the generations of Michigan students that follow,” said Kenneth Gutman, Superintendent of Oakland Schools. “We applaud the Senate’s actions today and hope that it is part of an ongoing effort to fix the long-term funding challenges that our public schools continue to face.”

Educators have noted that the School Aid Fund, the primary source of funding for Michigan’s public schools, has failed to keep up its revenues with the rate of inflation in recent years, meaning that even without the debt payments that traditional public schools are saddled with, their year-over-year spending power would be reduced. 

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The K-12 Alliance of Michigan is a coalition of education leaders committed to fighting for strong K-12 schools across Michigan. Comprised of Superintendents from every district in Genesee, Macomb, Monroe, Oakland, St. Clair, and Wayne counties, they are collectively responsible for educating over half of Michigan’s students.