UPDATE
Yeah...I should have given this one more time to stew before posting it. This is looking more and more like a criminal case. It's my opinion, since there's a long history of problems withing the system, that this is a pretense for assigning a financial manager considering things like embezzlement are fairly common in these parts and have been for some time. Mostly the penalty is a slap on the wrist.
But it's just my opinion the school is facing for a financial manager. If one school in the state is a likely candidate, this one would be high on the list. We'll know more in weeks to come. The school and the city of Muskegon Heights are in rough shape these days, worse than Muskegon proper, and have been for a very long time.
Remember all the hullabaloo about Michigan Governor Snyder's bill to declare schools and cities in a state of financial emergency and take over their finances with emergency financial managers?
Looks like it's already starting to happen.
The Muskegon Heights school system has had...I guess the word would be "troubles" for quite some time. It has consistently been one of the worst performing schools in the State of Michigan.
State rankings released in August identified Muskegon Heights High as the worst-performing school in the state. The required redesign plan for the school calls test scores in math, reading and writing “extremely low,” and notes they have dropped over the past four years.
The school system, in a highly impoverished portion of Muskegon, is in financial trouble, it's in educational trouble, and it has a very low graduate rate.
Today, State Police raided the school administrative building and seized records and documents following new reports of school budgetary woes (yes, they had a warrant from the State attorney general's office). While nobody is yet aware of the reason for the police raid, there's speculation it's a precursor to the State assignment of an emergency financial manager...it's important to note that Snyder has not yet signed the financial manager bill in question. Though he's expected to very soon.
It wasn't immediately clear why the state police's Major Case Unit out of Lansing executed a search warrant Wednesday morning at the school district's Board of Education Building. Detective First Lt. David Peltomaa said about a half-dozen of his officers were executing a warrant sought by the Michigan Attorney General's office.
In addition to seizing paper and electronic records, police were interviewing administrators, including Superintendent Dana Bryant. A witness said computers were removed from administrative offices.
The State police raid took placeearlier this morning - Wednesday, March 16th.
The Michigan State Police were at the Muskegon Heights Board of Education building Wednesday morning where they were seizing documents and interviewing officials.
The reason for the Major Case Unit's presence at the administration building wasn't immediately clear. Detective First Lt. David Peltomaa said his officers were executing a search warrant sought by the Michigan Attorney General's office.
"Right now, we're looking for records and documents, paper and electronics," Peltomaa said.
Muskegon Heights Public Schools Superintendent Dana Bryant was being interviewed by police and was unavailable for comment.
About a half-dozen officers with the State Police Major Case Team arrived Wednesday morning and "everyone's being very cooperative," Peltomaa said.
Bear in mind, that it has always been in the power of the Michigan Governor, even before Rick Snyder, to declare a municipality in a state of financial emergency and send in an emergency financial manager to take over the finances. Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm did it several times for cities that were melting down. Though I believe the school system thing is new...also new is the ability of financial managers to unilaterally overturn union agreements.