State senator to donate stipend to E.L. Education Foundation

Shortly after state Sen. Gretchen Whitmer, D-East Lansing, proposed legislation to cut legislators’ pay when they slash education funding, the Democratic senator announced she would donate her monthly legislative stipend to the East Lansing Education Foundation, or ELEF.

Whitmer said the $165 per pupil cut to Michigan public school funding in the 2009-10 state budget was too deep, and she hopes this would help prevent such cuts in the future.

Michigan senators receive a monthly $1,000 expense stipend, which is about $700 after taxes.

Whitmer said she will donate her monthly stipend until reforms pass, and she’s hopeful other lawmakers will do the same.

“Slashing schools while protecting their own perks shows just how out of touch these lawmakers are,” Whitmer said in an e-mail. “My donation alone can’t repair all the damage done by this Legislature, but I cannot in good conscience accept this expense allotment while they balance our state’s budget on the backs of our children.”

Whitmer also has introduced legislation to require lawmakers to provide documentation on how their expense stipend is spent, to reduce salaries of legislators with unexcused absences from session and require legislators to disclose their income and assets.

But some legislators said efforts to dock pay and punish lawmakers won’t solve budget problems.

“All that stuff is really more of political grandstanding than anything else,” said state Sen. Roger Kahn, R-Saginaw Township.

But Kahn said he would support meeting in continuous session to complete the state budget by June and to reduce waiting time for schools.

Douglas Roberts, an education financing expert and director of the MSU Institute for Public Policy and Social Research, said Whitmer’s intent might be sincere, but the Legislature probably won’t support her bills.

“Senator Whitmer probably believes what she’s saying,” Roberts said. “I think she’s trying to help, but I do think it is unlikely that the Legislature will adopt something like she’s proposing.”

Whitmer’s donation to the ELEF, a nonprofit organization that provides grants for local schools, will support grants the foundation distributes, said Joan Berardo, co-president of ELEF.

Berardo said school districts such as East Lansing and Waverly will need additional grants because of the budget cuts this year.

These districts are two of the 39 affected by a $50 million funding veto Gov. Jennifer Granholm requested — in addition to the $165 per pupil cut — to public schools.

Granholm also vetoed additional funding at $127 per pupil for all schools before passing the state’s K-12 budget.

“(Schools) are having such terrible, severe cuts,” Berardo said. “Our grants generally fund things teachers can’t do normally with allotted funding. Now there are so many things that aren’t going to be able to be done. (We) can’t even begin to make up that deficit.”