MARQUETTE, MI-- Per-pupil aid is going up next school year under the new state budget, but Marquette Area Public Schools will still deal with a deficit.
Superintendent Bill Saunders says aid is increasing by about $120 per student—or 1.5 percent—but that won’t make up for increases in employee salaries, insurance rates, and utility costs. He says last year also saw a decline in enrollment of about 60 students, as they’re not necessarily staying in the district from kindergarten to graduation.
Saunders says he’s always asked why the district is building more elementary rooms when enrollment has been down.
“With the increase in the number of students that we’re enrolling in our early childhood special education program, some other special education programs, with the state law with the third grade reading bill, the Title and the other reading intervention programs, our schools weren’t built for the pull-out and some of the other spaces that are needed to educate kids,” he says.
Saunders says the original forecast for the MAPS budget next year was a $1.4 million deficit, but cuts—including three full-time-equivalent layoffs in the teaching area and the layoff of about ten instructional program aides—has trimmed the deficit to around $575,000.
