Some major cuts are coming to Bridgman Public Schools, months after Superintendent Shane Peters warned the community they would be necessary.
Due to a drop in the taxable value of the Cook nuclear power plant, the school district had to identify $1.26 million in cuts for this year. Peters tells us they’re reducing 12 education positions while not replacing some employees who have retired or left the district, making for a total of about 20 employee cuts. The district is also eliminating the 9th grade boys basketball team, ceasing the replacement of aging Chromebooks, postponing the adoption of a new English-language arts curriculum, and eliminating one bus route.
Peters says district leaders have been working on targeted cuts each week for months to ensure parents only notice small changes.
“It would have been very easy to take a machete through this, but I think our district administrators and our building administrators really took out some scalpels and they made fine, fine incisions that do not affect the quality of education that happens here in Bridgman,” Peters said.
Peters says Bridgman Public Schools is the top academic performer in Southwest Michigan, and its main priority was to avoid jeopardizing that.
While the Cook plant first appealed its tax bill to the Michigan Tax Tribunal back in 2022, he says the district held off on making cuts to prepare.
“We could have looked at reducing staff. I think we would have won the case if it would have went to the tribunal. And maybe that’s my competitive nature. I think we would have won the case. But again, anytime you go in front of a judicial branch of government, there’s a risk.”
Peters says the district held off on making staff cuts to prepare earlier for the Cook changes, but he says the board did make sure to put some money away so the district can weather the next few years. It’ll start pulling some money out of its fund balance to get through the following two years, and then tax revenue should stabilize.
In the meantime, Peters is calling on the state Legislature to make changes that would allow the district to increase its millage levy. Right now, it can’t do that, even though it’s only levying 8.376 mills, compared to the 18 mills Proposal A allows other districts to seek. Peters says voters in the school district should get to decide whether they’re charged a little more to support the schools.
