Governor to Unveil Budget This Week

The governor’s budget proposal to be unveiled this week, will include a 322-million dollar spending increase in K-12 schools, although most of it will got toward mandatory school retirement costs. The Detroit Free Press, citing sources in the state budget office, reports that the governor’s overall proposal will represent a 2.8 percent spending increase on education, with one-fifth actually going for classrooms. The remainder would go to the Michigan Public School Employees Retirement System, because of stock market losses in 2009 and an early retirement program offered to teachers in 2010.