The Michigan Department of Education gave Detroit Public Schools deadlines this month for moving forward with a deficit-elimination plan.
The plan calls for closing 70 schools by 2013, increasing high school class sizes to more than 60 students, and outsourcing and consolidating services with the city and the countywide education agency between this year and 2014.
In a letter dated Feb. 8, Michael Flanagan, the state superintendent, gave conditional approval to the plan, including a condition that state-appointed emergency financial manager Robert Bobb not declare bankruptcy, something Bobb has said he does not intend to do. Bobb must submit proof by May 31 that DPS will cut costs by consolidating services — from financial operations to academic operations — with the city or other entities.
The plan “must be implemented immediately,” Flanagan wrote.
The department did not order DPS to make specific cuts, MDE spokeswoman Jan Ellis said. Deficit districts, by law, must devise a plan to restore their budgets to solvency; MDE’s role is to ensure the cuts add up and the district reaches its deadline for deficit elimination, she said.
While DPS operates under an emergency financial manager, it is required to submit monthly reports to the state that detail planned school closures and estimated cost savings and staff reductions.
Flanagan’s letter was a response to DPS’s January deficit-elimination plan and largely mirrors the approval he granted DPS on Aug. 4 after Bobb proposed what he calls “draconian” budget cuts to address a roughly $327-million deficit.
The cuts will meet the goal of eliminating the deficit, but Bobb contends the plan is not in the best interest of educating DPS students and could drive students away. The district has about 74,000 students, down from about 175,000 in 1999. It is expected to drop to about 58,000 students in 2014.
“A plan to immediately wipe out the deficit is simply not viable,” DPS spokesman Steve Wasko said.
Bobb also has proposed ideas calling for more state funding for DPS and other deficit districts, which would require new legislation.
“Mr. Bobb’s team certainly does not have the market on long-term solutions and ideas, and we’re prepared to run the numbers on anyone’s worthwhile proposal,” Wasko said.
Bobb already has announced the privatization of maintenance services to Sodexo, which is supposed to save DPS $75 million over five years. A list of school closures is due soon, he told the Free Press last month.
Contact Chastity Pratt Dawsey for more information regarding this article: 313-223-4537 or cpratt@freepress.com
