Jasmine Brown, kindergarten teacher at Lakewood Elementary, leads her students in waving their parents goodbye during the first day of school on Sept. 4, 2018. (Jacob Hamilton | MLive)

ANN ARBOR, MI - Creating a single Washtenaw County school district would bring substantially more money to local schools, Washtenaw Intermediate School District Superintendent Scott Menzel said.

Menzel said he's done the math and, assuming the county’s nine traditional public K-12 school districts annex into Ann Arbor Public Schools, it would mean an additional $35 million in state revenue.

AAPS gets $9,410 per student from the state in the 2018-19 school year, the highest in the county. Four local school districts received $7,871 per student, the minimum guaranteed allowance.

Giving all Washtenaw County K-12 students the same per-student allotment as AAPS equates to the overall boost in state funding, Menzel said.

In addition to the difference in state funding , academic outcomes also vary widely among Washtenaw County school districts.

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The chart shows academic performance by school district in the 2017-18 school year, according to the Michigan Center for Educational Performance and Information. (Lauren Slagter | MLive)

If Washtenaw County wants to seriously consider ways to provide a quality education for all local students and ensure equitable resources among the schools, Menzel said creating a county-wide school district needs to be an option.

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Local school officials have been discussing the idea for about a year and a half, Menzel said, and it’s important for the public to have the facts in case it’s an option they want to pursue.

Creating a county-wide district would not close schools, but would change the governance structure of school districts, he said, acknowledging concerns about losing local control and school identities.

“These kinds of issues provoke an emotional response oftentimes,” Menzel said. “I would encourage people to be open-minded about the conversation and recognize that none of this is inked in stone and none of it will happen quickly.

“But we must be willing to have the difficult conversation. Where it leads, I’m not prepared to say what the final outcome should be, but I’m convinced we should have the conversation.”

Here’s a closer look at four state-level legislative changes Menzel said are needed to make a county-wide school district possible and attractive to local taxpayers.

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Students arrive for the first day of school at Lakewood Elementary on Sept. 4, 2018. (Jacob Hamilton | MLive)

A note about K-12 school funding in Michigan

Prior to Proposal A passing in 1994, schools were largely funded through local property taxes. Under Proposal A, most tax revenues for schools go to the state, which distributes the money to schools on a per-student basis.

Proposal A limits the tax rate school districts can levy to support general operations. There’s a provision, however, that lets “out-of-formula” districts already levying more than allowed under Proposal A when it passed to ask voters for a “hold harmless” millage to maintain their current per-student funding.

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Ann Arbor Public Schools is an "out-of-formula" district that levies a hold harmless millage in addition to the 18-mill general operating millage all schools collect.

Here's what it would entail to annex Washtenaw County schools into a single district of about 46,500 students.

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Students gather in the cafeteria at Ann Arbor Skyline High School for the first day of school on Sept. 4, 2018. (Jacob Hamilton | MLive)

1. County-wide school district annexation

Current state law allows school districts to annex contiguous districts. However, not every Washtenaw County school district borders AAPS, so a change in state law would need to allow for county-wide annexation, Menzel said.

To annex the other eight school districts into AAPS, voters in each district would have to pass the proposal. If voters in one district didn't support the proposal, that district would not be annexed.

If state law changed to allow for county-wide annexation, Menzel would also like to see changes in the process for voters to approve the move.

Plan advocates four school districts for Washtenaw County, from The Ann Arbor News archives, Aug. 29, 1967

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Students sit in a circle in Jasmine Brown's kindergarten class at Lakewood Elementary during the first day of school on Sept. 4, 2018. (Jacob Hamilton | MLive)

2. AAPS foundation allowance for all students

When combining school districts, state law outlines a formula to blend the existing foundation allowances to come up with a new per-student state allotment.

The failed attempt to annex Whitmore Lake Public Schools into AAPS in 2014 demonstrated that a blended foundation allowance - lower than what AAPS currently receives per pupil - will not work, Menzel said.

“There has to be some incentive for people in Ann Arbor to consider this as well,” he said. “The foundation grant can’t go backwards.”

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Ann Arbor Public Schools Board of Education meeting at Forsythe Middle School, Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2019 in Ann Arbor. (Ben Allan Smith | MLive.com)

3. Local representation on county-wide school board

Currently, school board members are elected by overall popular vote, and they do not run to represent certain wards of their school district.

That would need to change to ensure equal representation on a county-wide school board, Menzel said. He envisions a structure similar to the County Board of Commissioners, where commissioners are elected to represent the part of the county where they live.

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Students gather in the cafeteria at Ann Arbor Skyline High School for the first day of school on Sept. 4, 2018. (Jacob Hamilton | MLive)

4. More options to refinance existing debt

This legislative change would be the “heavy lift,” Menzel said.

Under current state law, annexing school districts can either blend their existing debt so all taxpayers in the new district help pay it off, or maintain the debt separately.

In the case of the Willow Run-Ypsilanti schools consolidation in 2013, the debt was maintained separately. As a result, Willow Run residents are paying one of the highest debt retirement millages in the county -- 13 mills -- even though their school district no longer exists.

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Taxpayers would be reluctant to take on high debt retirement millages from other school districts, Menzel said.

How ever the existing debt is handled, all Washtenaw County taxpayers would still take on AAPS’ millages in a county-wide annexation. AAPS currently has a hold harmless millage and sinking fund millage in addition to the general operating millage.

Raising taxes for residents in Willow Run and Milan, who already pay high debt retirement millages for their local schools, would be a tough sell, Menzel said.

Instead, he would like to see a change in state law to allow more flexibility in refinancing local schools’ existing debt during the annexation.

“(We need) a way to restructure the bond debt for all nine of our districts, so that if we move to a county-based school system, you would be able to assure taxpayers you wouldn’t be paying more than you’re currently paying,” Menzel said.

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Students walk the halls on the first day of school at Lakewood Elementary on Sept. 4, 2018. (Jacob Hamilton | MLive)

Other considerations

In addition to $35 million more in state funding from a higher county-wide per-student foundation allowance, Menzel also anticipates savings from eliminating redundant administrative positions. There’s potential for savings from more efficiently sharing transportation, technology and other services too.

Having a county-wide school district would change the concentration of low-income students at certain schools, which is used to determine eligibility for federal Title I grants. Menzel said he has not calculated how that grant funding would be impacted under a county-wide school district.

Also, curriculum and teacher contracts would need to be aligned county-wide. Having a uniform teacher pay scale would allow the county-wide school district to offer incentives to teachers taking more challenging assignments, Menzel said.

“There’s a recognition that right now Ypsilanti struggles to attract and retain talented teachers and administrators,” he said. “They may start in Ypsilanti and then they’ll be hired by a neighboring, (higher-paying) district. … In a district where our needs are the greatest, we need more experienced teachers. … If we were one district on one contract, then you have a very different conversation about where you deploy your staff.”

Expanding the Ann Arbor Public Schools brand county-wide also could help raise property values by making all of Washtenaw County a more desirable place to live, he said.

Having a county-wide school district would change the role of the intermediate school district as well, likely to a more regional approach, Menzel said.

Intermediate school districts assist local schools with pupil accounting, special education services, professional development and other specialized programs. Washtenaw Intermediate School District could not run a county-wide K-12 system because intermediate school districts cannot collect foundation allowances from the state.