A bill introduced in the state Senate would give public universities, schools and community colleges an annual funding increase equal to the inflation rate, or 5 percent, depending on which is lower.
Senate Minority Leader Robert Emerson, D-Flint, introduced the bill and said it's time for politicians to stop talking about increasing funding and act on it.
"There's nothing more important than education," Emerson said. "As we are prioritizing our budget and the things the state spends money on, our first priority should be education."
The bill also would give money back to schools for the past three years, which would go into the School Aid Fund. He said funding education should be an issue that isn't partisan.
"It's time to make people stand up and say, 'What's the most important thing in the budget?'" Emerson said. "It's time we match our words with our actions."
But some state officials said they are concerned with the fact that funding would be automatic, instead of evaluating each year to see if the budget could afford it.
"The governor is concerned about guaranteeing a specific funding level without a dedicated revenue source," Granholm spokeswoman Liz Boyd said.
Ari Adler, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Ken Sikkema, R-Wyoming, said Senate Republicans are concerned an automatic guarantee could be bad if one year the money isn't available. Both the House and the Senate are Republican-controlled.
He said the Republicans want to look at exactly where the money would go - to classrooms or administrators.
"The bill proposes automatic funding increases, but there's no reference to any way to pay for that," Adler said. "We are facing a difficult budget and are trying to control spending, and Michigan can no longer spend money it doesn't have."
Jon Sticklen, chairman of the Executive Committee of Academic Council and an associate professor of computer science, said the bill could be a "welcome relief," but he isn't sure it can make up all the funding the university needs.
"We are underfunded," Sticklen said. "If we're supposed to turn out gobs more students to help the state's economy, you can't do that on a wing and a prayer."
David Martell, associate executive director of the Michigan School Business Officials, said the organization thinks the bill would be a good idea for funding education.
"Schools don't have the ability to raise additional revenues, so the whole funding situation is a problem for schools, and it's the state's problem to fix," Martell said.
Funding for middle school students going to college is another issue being debated, particularly the additional $500 that was going to be given to students in the seventh and eighth grades who passed all four sections of the Michigan Educational Assessment Program, starting in 2005. It was tacked onto the $2,500 students already received.
Instead, Granholm has proposed that if students do well on the exam, they would receive $4,000 after completing two years of college and completing other requirements.
Granholm plans to replace the MEAP with the Michigan Merit Exam by spring 2007.
Martell said without the $500, there won't be as much incentive for middle school students and their parents to care about the test.
Boyd said because the payments for the test are being increased from $2,500 to $4,000, the eliminated $500 isn't an issue.
"The governor warned everyone in the fall that this would be eliminated," Boyd said. "No one should be surprised."
