The defeat of the Macomb Intermediate School District millage on Tuesday was a blow to the county’s education community and an unmistakable victory for Leon Drolet and his Michigan Taxpayer Alliance.
Even Drolet was predicting on Monday that the 1.2-mill tax hike for special education would pass because of the built-in advantages enjoyed by the school lobby. School superintendents and principals across the county had sent home notes explaining the value of the millage proposal and urging people to visit the pro-tax camp’s webite.
In addition, the schools have a tried- and-true GOTV machine that relies upon unions, faculty, PTO members, coaches and, of course, parents of students to get their people to the polls.
In Tuesday’s vote, there was another element that tipped the scales. In Macomb’s largest townships the only item on the ballot was the MISD proposal – in most of Clinton, all of Macomb, most of Shelby and all of Chesterfield. As a result, political observers expected pro-millage voters to do their duty and show up in those four communities while many other voters, facing a single-issue ballot, would stay home.
Instead, the turnout in those four townships was decent and the tax hike lost in all but Macomb.
Drolet’s MTA had launched 40,000 robo-calls in two batches, which is not much in a county of 840,000 people, and was clearly outspent if one includes the letters that went out to parents.
Given the “slanted playing field,” Drolet said, it’s reasonable to conclude that the MISD plan was one of the few tax proposals in the Detroit area to fail on Tuesday because the special ed. millage faced organized opposition and most of the others did not.
I would add that government officials, especially educators, continue to underestimate the amount of anger and frustration that taxpayers feel about the level of pay and benefits for teachers and administrators. Drolet succeeded in making public sector an issue in this campaign, rather than letting the education community keep the focus on special needs kids.