State, Local School Officials Remain Committed to Building Comprehensive School Mental Health System for Students

State Board of Education Seeks Additional Investment as Funding in Budget Decreases Significantly

LANSING – State and local education leaders remain committed to building a stable and comprehensive school mental health system for Michigan’s students in the 2024-25 school year and beyond with the funding that is made available to them even as they urge legislators to supplement budget funding to continue positive momentum to improving students’ mental health.

“We will continue to work with local and intermediate school district educators and helping professionals to build out a comprehensive mental health system to support the mental health needs of Michigan’s children,” said State Superintendent Dr. Michael F. Rice.

Dr. Diane Golzynski, deputy superintendent of MDE’s Division of Business, Health, and Library Services, said that while much of the work to address students’ mental health occurs in local schools, the department provides support.

“Board, the research is very clear that when children have unaddressed mental health challenges, they are not at their best at school,” she said at last week’s State Board of Education meeting.

At that meeting, the board voted to formally ask state legislators to address school mental health budget reductions by approving supplemental fiscal year 2025 budget funding for student mental health. The board passed a resolution calling for a supplemental budget to be passed to restore on a recurring basis the more than $300 million cut from Section 31aa funding.

Golzynski and other MDE officials gave presentations at the meeting on progress in children’s mental health, part of Goal 3 in Michigan’s Top 10 Strategic Education Plan, to improve the health, safety, and wellness of all learners, and on Goal 8, to provide adequate and equitable school funding. Officials who spoke at that meeting hope the legislature and governor will approve a supplemental budget to Michigan’s fiscal year 2025 school aid budget that will bolster student mental health and school safety supports and offset the cut in total funding for children’s mental health services in Michigan schools for the upcoming fiscal year.

“We’ve made great progress in providing mental health services to children in their schools,” said Board President Dr. Pamela Pugh. “But there’s a lot of work still to be done. This is not the time to take our foot off the gas pedal. We need to continue staffing up with helping professionals so that we make sure that our children are receiving the mental health services that they need and that our schools are safe.”

Mr. Scott Hutchins, supervisor of MDE’s School Behavioral Health Unit, told board members that while some other states are primarily relying on expiring federal pandemic relief funds to pay for school-based mental health professionals, Michigan has added these staff with state funding and with federal Medicaid reimbursement for services to students who are Medicaid-eligible.

Michigan’s state school aid act provided no school mental health funding as recently as fiscal year 2018. After $31.3 million in funding in each of fiscal years 2019 and 2020, $56.9 million in fiscal year 2021, $179.3 million in fiscal year 2022, and $376.4 million in fiscal year 2023, budget investments in mental health and school safety climbed to an historic $491.8 million in the current fiscal year, fiscal year 2024. The increased dollars allowed schools to hire more than 1,000 additional helping professionals such as social workers, counselors, nurses, and psychologists.

However, mental health and safety funding in the fiscal year 2025 budget dropped to $136.7 million from $491.8 million, a decline of 72%. This cut, if unchanged, would reduce the momentum for improvement that has taken place over the last half decade in this important area, Rice said, unless a supplemental budget is passed. The superintendent said that the diminished budget would result in schools not being able to continue increasing the hiring of helping professionals that they need, although schools should largely be able to retain the helping professional staff that they had previously hired with ongoing Section 31n funding and with the commitment to pay locally for Section 31o-funded professionals at the end of the Section 31o grant cycle.

Educators from West Shore Educational Service District (ESD), which provides support to local school districts in Lake, Mason, and Oceana counties, attended the board meeting to discuss how the increased state financial support and the work of local staff have allowed the schools to build a comprehensive school mental health system.

“There has been a huge improvement in the capacity of the local school districts in our ESD to meet the complex and diverse needs of students,” said Ms. Amy Taranko, assistant superintendent of instructional services. “In terms of our knowledge, experience and the supports in place, we are now better equipped to address these needs in ways that are tailored to our individual school districts.

“Though far from perfect, our systems are light years ahead of where we were just a few years ago,” she said. “Increased funding for school mental health and safety have ensured more qualified professionals and systems are in place in our ESD and in our local school districts. Many of these services ensure that students’ needs are being met in school where they are more likely to access them.”

# # #