In his budget presentation to the State Legislature, Gov. Rick Snyder billed the education portion as making an investment in Michigan. He described increased spending on preschool - a good thing - and efforts to limit the costs of the public school employee pension system - the burden of which falls mostly on current and future retirees. But he also claimed that the state government had increased spending on K-12 education by 11% over the last four years, including his new proposal. He even had a slide to "illustrate" the point.
Now, with the Governor's focus on being a "nerd," and the budget materials all identifying him as a Certified Public Accountant as well as Governor, you might think that all these numbers pretty much reflect reality. But as we have learned over the last decade, to our cost, financial numbers can be "massaged" to tell different stories depending on the audience.
h4. Gov. Snyder, CPA, was engaged in a litte bit of what they call "earnings management." A closer look at K-12 spending shows a different, and more accurate, picture. We need to keep the true picture in mind as we discuss the performance of our public schools.