Detroit Public Schools are close to a $715 million bailout package
House Speaker Kevin Cotter said the bailout plan could not be taken up by the lower house before the legislature goes on break on March 25, and urged senators to quickly vote on an emergency spending measure passed by representatives earlier this month.
The House approved a $48.7 million emergency funding measure aiming to keep the school district, known as DPS, from shutting down in April. But the Senate has not yet debated that measure.
"Because of the five-day rule written into the state Constitution, the House cannot take up the Senate's long-term DPS plan this week. The Senate can, however, still address the House plan for short-term funding and oversight that we passed last week. That issue has not yet been solved," House Speaker Kevin Cotter, a Republican, said in a statement.
Steven Rhodes, a former federal bankruptcy judge appointed by Governor Rick Snyder to run the district, has warned that DPS will not have money after April 8 to pay teachers and staff, which would force him to close schools.
Eighty eight of the roughly 100 schools in the system closed, accounting for about a 90% closure rate, according to CNN.
"Detroit's public schools are in a state of crisis," the Detroit teachers' union wrote on its website. "Children are struggling in schools with hazardous environmental and safety issues. Educators have made significant sacrifices for the good of students, including taking pay cuts and reductions in health benefits."
Some of those hazards were on display when Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan took a tour of Detroit schools in mid-January.
Duggan said he saw a dead mouse, freezing classrooms where students were wearing coats, and severely damaged rooms, according to the Associated Press. Duggan's school tour was precipitated by an earlier teacher sickout that closed 64 schools.
"Our children need our teachers in the classroom," Duggan said in January, according to the AP. "But there's no question about the legitimacy of the issues that they're raising."
Reuters reporting by Fiona Ortiz.