OKEMOS - Spring break might just have started for the current 2015-16 school year, but school boards are already planning the 2016-17 budget.

The budget is due to the state on June 30, therefore, Okemos and Haslett schools have time to review the current proposed budget.

The possible budget offers an additional $60 per student, adding to the current amount that each school already receives.

“The crooks of this conversation is about kids. We need money in order to educate kids,” Okemos Director of Finance Robert Clark said.

Charter and cyber schools will receive $120 on top of what they already get per student.

“Charter schools and cyber schools make money off of kids and their families,” Clark said. “So the question has to be asked why? Why $120 for those institutions and only $60 for public school districts?”

School district employees of Okemos schools have not had a consistent increase in income, and sometimes they have had pay freezes.

Since the amount of money paid to schools is per student, the more students that enroll in a particular school, the more money that school will receive from state funds.

"The state is doing everything they can do be fair and equitable but that does not necessary equate to adequate funding,” Clark said.

Although the schools will receive more money for each student, the expenses also increase.

Because of this, cutting extracurricular activities was the solution to the low and insufficient budgets of some years in the past.

To combat this cut, the Okemos Education Foundation made a decision in 2005 that it would help raise the funds to support those after-school activities.

“That's such an important part of a student's education is the extracurricular activities, in fact, most of us those are our happiest memories, our strongest memories of high school,”
Okemos Education Foundation Board Chair Martha Hentz said.

“Not necessarily what we did in an academic class, it's what we did after school with our friends, and those educational experiences really are educational.”

Hentz said that extracurricular activities are an extension of the learning that happens in schools.

Once an official budget is created, it will be revised in November, once the official count of students is done in October.