A green parachute for Michigan education.

• Author: Weeks, George

Michigan lawmakers decided to rebuild their education system from the bottom and started by cutting some $7 billion in property taxes. Many thought they couldn't do it, but apparently they did.

Michigan voters on March 15 will decide how they want to tax themselves to finance their schools. The Legislature eliminated some $7 billion in school revenue in July and then worked nearly nonstop through December to craft a new plan.

It's been a year of political upheaval for the Michigan Legislature. After 26 years of Democratic rule, the Republicans gained a split House in the 1992 election. Scores of Democratic staffers were laid off, leaders of both parties spent weeks wooing members of the opposite party and ultimately a historic power-sharing agreement created "stereo speakers."

On June 2, voters by a 54-46 ratio rejected a bipartisan constitutional proposal to replace school property taxes with a 2-cent hike in the sales tax. It was the 12th time they had rejected a proposed constitutional amendment on school finance since voting in 1972 against a proposal to limit property taxes and establish a state school tax. Still, the June 2 amendment came closer to winning than any of the previous 11 proposals.

On July 21, the Legislature passed, and Governor John Engler (a legislator himself for 20 years) quickly signed as Public Act 145 of 1993, a plan to eliminate the property tax as a source of school operating funds. This action wiped out nearly $7 billion in revenue--without providing for replacement--and led to howls of protest from the education community, which likened it to jumping out of a plane without a parachute.

There was widespread skepticism when Engler and Senator Debbie Stabenow--author of the tax cut and a leading Democratic candidate for governor--vowed a green parachute would open by year's end. It did.

In a dramatic marathon of negotiating and voting that ended on Christmas Eve, the Legislature reached agreement on a two-pronged approach that in simple terms forces voters to choose between a hike in the sales tax or the income tax in order to pay for the property tax cut. In reality, there is nothing simple about either the ballot plan or the Legislature's backup plan for a statute.

Ballot Plan

Voters will be asked in a special election March 15 to pass a measure that among other things would:

* Increase the sales tax by 2 cents on the dollar. About $1.8 billion would be raised by changing the constitutional limit on the tax from 4 percent to 6 percent. (Michigan, which began with a 3...