{"id":219455,"date":"2026-03-14T10:17:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T10:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/219455\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T10:17:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T10:17:10","slug":"oakland-county-regional-enhancement-millage-set-for-august-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/219455\/","title":{"rendered":"Oakland County Regional Enhancement Millage set for August vote"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n By
\n
\n jward@tctimes.com <\/a>
\n |
\n on
\n March 14, 2026 <\/p>\n

By Shelby Stewart-Soldan
ssoldan@mihomepaper.com\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\"\u00a0\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Oakland County Regional Enhancement Millage is slated to be on the ballot for August 4.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur board still has to approve the ballot language, probably later this month, and it will go to the clerk\u2019s office in April,\u201d said Kenneth Gutman, Oakland County Intermediate School District superintendent.<\/p>\n

The enhancement millage aims to help close the gaps in funding for school districts in Oakland County by providing an annual, per-pupil allotment for each district. The millage would be for 1.5 mills, or $150 annually for a property with $200,000 of property value, and would be levied county-wide for six years. It would generate an average of $781 per pupil, per year, and the funds would be unrestricted.<\/p>\n

School boards in the county had to approve putting the initiative on the ballot. The Brandon board of education, for example, voted in favor of having it on the ballot, as did other school districts representing over 51% of students in the county, allowing the placement of the milage on the ballot.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis didn\u2019t come from the ISD, this came from our 28 local superintendents,\u201d said Gutman. \u201cA lot of it had to do with a number of different factors across the county, and every district would have a different use for these funds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gutman cited issues that districts face including declining enrollment, uncertain funding amounts from the state, and issues of improving academic performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cDeclining enrollment is pretty significant,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen you lose students, you don\u2019t lose them in one spot or one building or one classroom, so you can\u2019t make reductions fast enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Districts are able to use these funds however they need, including reducing class size, retaining teachers and other staff, facility improvements, or improvements to programming, such as curriculum, math or literacy programs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ISD doesn\u2019t receive any funding,\u201d said Gutman. \u201cAll of he money goes to their local schools. We won\u2019t get a penny, but we\u2019ll do all the work to be a pass through.\u201d<\/p>\n

Based on the 2025 enrollment data for Brandon, the district would receive an average of $1.5 million per year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey can be used for any purpose we deem necessary,\u201d said Brandon Superintendent Carly Stone. \u201cWe want to ensure our students have the best environment and learning opportunities, and the funds would be used to enhance that experience. That could look like purchasing new buses, new technology, compensation for staff, some capital improvement projects we need to do. These are unrestricted funds, so whatever we need them for.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By jward@tctimes.com | on March 14, 2026 By Shelby Stewart-Soldanssoldan@mihomepaper.com \u00a0 The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":219456,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144],"class_list":["post-219455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}