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Home HOME-0003 · Ballot item · Exhibit MC-0003 · Exhibit version 3.0 draft · Home version 1.0
Jurisdiction and deciding body: Michigan school districts that levy the non-homestead operating millage. Deciding body: the voters of the district, at a renewal election.
Instrument: Instrument text not yet certified
Decision date: Not stated in the record. Lifecycle stage: Open file.
Validation: Last validated 2026-10-28. Next review date: Not stated in the record.
Filed under: Money and taxes. Entered by the Clerk. Stamped: record checked, October 28, 2026.
People who educate their children outside the public schools, including Christian and homeschool families, should not have to pay for public school education, and nobody helps them with their tuition or homeschool costs.
Stated in its common form. This claim circulates in many wordings, and it is rephrased here so that no one person's exact words are singled out.
The millage is only a renewal of the existing rate, and voting no cuts the schools' operating money, which the state will not replace.
Stated in its common form. This claim circulates in many wordings, and it is rephrased here so that no one person's exact words are singled out.
What follows is the record underneath both claims.
The record, in brief: The levy is a renewal of the same 18 mills in place since 1994. It is paid by businesses, rental property, and second homes, and it is not charged on primary residences or qualified farmland. Michigan's 4th-grade reading rank is 44th, and its spending is $18,314 per pupil, which is 19th in the nation, above the middle rather than near the top.
What a YES vote does: It renews the 18-mill non-homestead operating millage at the same rate in place since Proposal A in 1994. The levy continues to be paid by businesses, rental property, and second homes, and it continues to not be charged on primary residences or qualified farmland. A district that levies the full 18 mills receives its full per-pupil foundation allowance. (District millage FAQs; Michigan Treasury exemption guidance.)
What a NO vote does: It lowers nobody's taxes. It reduces the district's operating revenue, and the state does not replace the reduction. A district that does not levy the full 18 mills does not receive its full foundation allowance. (District millage FAQs.)
When it takes effect: Not stated in the record.
Who carries it out: The school district levies the 18 mills, and levying the full rate is the condition for receiving the full foundation allowance. (District millage FAQs; House Fiscal Agency.)
What it costs or raises: The rate is 18 mills, and one mill is $1 per $1,000 of taxable value. A rental property with a taxable value of $100,000 pays 18 times $100, which is $1,800 a year under this levy. A primary home with the same taxable value pays $0, because the levy is not charged on primary residences. (Arithmetic from the mill definition, as the exhibit states it.) A district-wide total raised is not stated in the record.
How it can be changed later: The levy continues only because voters renew it, and the question surfaces every renewal cycle, so the voters of the district change or end it at a later renewal election. (Exhibit, sections 1 and 6.)
No projection filed. The record does not yet hold enough to project from.
What is true in the Exhibit 1: Michigan's 44th place in 4th-grade reading is a real failure, and voters are entitled to demand better for the money.
What is true in the Exhibit 2: the renewal mechanics are as stated, and the figures in this argument come from public sources, not from the schools.
Last validated 2026-10-28. Filed updates: 0. Latest: none filed.
Both claims are stated in their common form. Each circulates in many wordings, in Michigan and elsewhere, and each is rephrased here accurately and in the same way, so that no one person's exact words are singled out. The first claim holds that the millage taxes people who do not use the schools, that Michigan ranks near the bottom while spending near the top, that the money is mismanaged, and that homes are being lost over it. The second claim holds that the millage is only a renewal of the existing rate, that a no vote cuts school operating revenue, and that the state will not replace the money. Both claims surface every renewal cycle, at school board meetings and in comment threads across Michigan. This brief checks them against the record, figure by figure, and then leaves the part that is genuinely debatable where it belongs, which is with the reader.
The exhibit does not reproduce the ballot wording for this renewal, and no operative text is quoted here. The instrument in plain meaning is a renewal of the same 18-mill non-homestead operating millage that has been in place since Proposal A in 1994. It is not a new tax, and it is not an increase. The levy falls on businesses, rental property, and second homes, and primary residences and qualified farmland are exempt from it.
The decision maker is the voters of the district. The decision date is not stated in the record.
The status quo, stated as carefully as the change: the 18 mills are in place now and have been since 1994, and districts must levy the full 18 mills to receive their full per-pupil foundation allowance. Separately, every Michigan property pays the 6-mill State Education Tax, and roughly 80% of school funding has been state-sourced, mainly from the sales tax, since Proposal A. If the renewal fails, no tax bill falls, the district's operating revenue falls, and the state does not backfill the reduction.
Underneath both claims sits one question, and it is what residents owe to a public school system they may not personally use, and what performance they may demand from it in return. That is a question about values, and reasonable people answer it differently. Who pays this specific levy is not a values question, and neither is whether the levy is new, or what the published scores and budgets say. Those are in the record, and the record is below.
The first claim holds on the reading scores, because 44th in 4th-grade reading, with about 45% of 4th graders below Basic, is a poor result, and it is the result this levy funds. The claim holds in a narrower form as well, because families who educate their children outside the public schools still help fund those schools, through the 6-mill State Education Tax that every Michigan property pays and through the state sources that supply roughly 80% of school funding. The claim breaks on this levy itself, because the 18 mills are not charged on primary residences or qualified farmland, and both are exempt from it. The claim breaks on novelty, because the levy is a renewal of a rate unchanged since 1994, and it is not a new tax or an increase. The claim breaks on spending, because Michigan's $18,314 per pupil ranks 19th in the nation, above the middle and not near the top. The figures in this argument do not come from the schools. The scores are NAEP's, the spending figures are the Census Bureau's, the funding levels are the House Fiscal Agency's, and the foreclosure data is ATTOM's, and the data is already public.
The second claim holds on the mechanics it states. The levy is a renewal of the same 18 mills in place since 1994. A no vote reduces the district's operating revenue, and the state does not replace the reduction. A district that does not levy the full 18 mills does not receive its full foundation allowance. The claim breaks at the word "just," because a renewal describes the rate, and it does not answer the performance question the record raises: 44th in 4th-grade reading, with about 45% of 4th graders below Basic, is a legitimate grievance on its own terms, and $18,314 per pupil is a substantial sum that residents are entitled to examine. The claim also breaks if the renewal is heard as costless, because it is not costless to its actual payers. Businesses, landlords, and second-home owners pay real money under it, about $1,800 a year on a property with a taxable value of $100,000.
Strip both claims down and they share a skeleton. This levy funds the daily operation of the public schools. Its results are published, and they are mixed, with one poor ranking and three in the middle of the states. And the levy continues only because voters renew it, which is the accountability mechanism Proposal A built in. The record answers what the levy is and what the scores are. Who should pay for the schools is the actual debate, and it cannot be settled by a dataset, including this one.
$0. The first claim is argued as if the levy lands on the family home. The second claim is argued as if the family home were what a no vote protects. The measured amount a primary homeowner pays toward this levy is $0, because the levy is not charged on primary residences. The argument the record leaves is narrower: whether businesses, landlords, and second-home owners should keep funding school operations at a rate set in 1994, in light of the 2024 reading scores.
No projection filed. The record does not yet hold enough to project from.
The factual part is already settled, because the documents are public and cited above: the rate, the payers, the exemptions, the scores, the spending rank, and what a no vote does. What the record cannot settle is whether residents who do not use the public schools owe support to them anyway, and whether a 44th-place reading rank should cost a district its operating renewal. Those are values and performance judgments. They belong to the reader, and the ballot is where they are decided.
Per-pupil figures are statewide averages, and district-level spending and taxable values vary. The $1,800 example uses a round taxable value for illustration; the formula is the fact, not the example.
Michigan district millage FAQs (Fruitport, Oakridge, Hanover-Horton) · Michigan Treasury exemption guidance · NAEP 2024 · U.S. Census Bureau, FY2024 Annual Survey of School System Finances · Michigan House Fiscal Agency (FY2026 budget; FY2027 enacted budget summary) · ATTOM foreclosure report (Aug 2026). Receipt Pack MC-0003 available on request.
No filed updates.
You can debate what to do about the facts here. The facts are not the debate.