It could be a while before schools and parents learn if calls to state lawmakers for supplementary mental health funding for Michigan schools bear any fruit.
Members of the State Board of Education passed a resolution in a 6-2 vote at their Aug. 13 meeting asking legislators to undo more than $300 million in cuts to mental health and school safety funds in the state’s budget for the next fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.
The Michigan Department of Education on Monday, Aug. 19, echoed concerns over the budget reduction, fearing it would stymie a rise in the state’s investment in services for children amid ongoing concerns across the state for schools looking to close the treatment gap for a growing number of youths battling mental health concerns.
“We are hoping the legislature will approve supplemental school mental health/safety funding this fall,” MDE spokesman Bob Wheaton said in an email. “There are expected to be some session days prior to the (November) election.”
In the state budget OK’d by lawmakers for 2025, mental health and safety funds overall dropped to $136.7 million from this year’s $491.8 million, a 72% decrease.
Read more: Students are struggling. Can Michigan schools meet their mental health needs?
The reduction, if left unchanged, could halt schools from hiring professional staff who help students, State Superintendent Michael Rice said in a statement.
Michigan’s previous upswing on investment for student mental health came during the last six years, despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, Rice, who chairs the state board’s monthly meeting, told board members Aug. 13.
Michigan schools had been able to hire new mental health staff with state funds and federal Medicaid reimbursements for services to eligible students, Scott Hutchins, MDE’s School Behavioral Health Unit supervisor, told board members.
From 2018 when “precisely nothing was there” in school aid for mental health, Rice said the state went up to roughly $31 million for the 2019 fiscal year. He reflected that it only equated to “20 bucks a child” but said it served as a positive step at the time.
According to MDE, those funds rose to $56.9 million, $19.3 million, and $376.4 million in 2021, 2022, and 2023, respectively
The more than 1,000 mental health professionals the state added during the last four years, however, are in jeopardy and subject to funding under other areas of school aid with lawmakers’ recent cut to funds for mental health and safety, Rice said.
“I’m concerned about the funding cuts in the fiscal year 2025 budget, which reduces the momentum in addressing children’s mental health issues in the state,” he said.
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