My name is Steve Keglovitz and I am a member of the Fruitport Community School Board and a long-time resident. I want to let the public know about what is going on in the struggling schools’ system funding. First, I need to explain some things. Only 6.7% of the state lottery dollars go toward funding of education dollars (not the state commercial selling point).
Some schools are sitting on very healthy funds due to Homestead property taxes, which hurts the poor areas and poorer districts and benefits the more wealthy, affluent neighborhoods and their schools. We also send taxpayer dollars (which used to be earmarked for public education) to the state charter schools and academies, because they can’t get Homestead dollars, so we supplement them, although they are not forced to exist and be run under the same rules and guidelines as public education.