Ben Garbacz/Daily Mining Gazette Nels Christopherson, Timothy Palosaari and Dale Kero of the CCISD Board of Education listen to the report on how the recently passed state budget will impact the district. Christopherson also announced he will be resigning from the Regional Education Media Center (REMC) 1 committee and the Copper Country Association of School Boards.

HANCOCK — The Copper Country Intermediate School District (CCISD) learned more of what the recently passed state budget will mean for the district. At Tuesday’s board meeting, CCISD Superintendent James Rautiola said that while the district is still trying to dissect what every aspect of the new budget means, there are areas where they understand how the budget will play out.

“But from what we know right now, today, and what we believe to be true would be about a $500,000 (negative) difference to the Copper Country ISD,” Rautiola said. “Essentially there’s two programs that got hit. MiStem was flat lined, and then the Great Start Collaborative, we didn’t receive that flow through.”

The MiStem Network and MiStem Advisory Council work together at state and local levels to advance Pre-kindergarten through 12th grad STEM education and broaden access to STEM experiences and catalyze 3P learning beyond the physical classroom according to the michigan.gov website. 3P learning is a problem, project and place-based education which is designed to engage learners through experimental learning. The michigan.gov website explains the Great Start Collaboratives are early childhood systems building bodies in the state of Michigan and are locally driven based on the needs and data of their community, set forth in their Strategic Plans and through family voice and engagement.

Rautiola pointed out the cut to the Great Start Collaboratives was strange due to it being in the budget for many years. “So for it to just be eliminated, a line item with essentially no conversation, and the transparency piece was a little bit frustrating this budget season. That hurts, because it would be nice if we would at least have a heads up, but that’s neither here nor there,” Rautiola said.

He said he’s been in contact with the legislature and having discussions with them, but said it would not mean there would be any changes. “But [I’m] at least making them aware of when you’re going to make these line item slashes, so to speak, at least reach out and ask what the unintended consequence downstream is, because for our legislatures in their backyard, it’s a cut, and that doesn’t matter to them. So hopefully we’ll have better communication as we move forward,” Rautiola said.

CCISD Board Vice President Gale Eiola suggested the legislature could submit a supplemental bill for a refund, and Rautiola said there is talk that there could or could not be a supplemental bill put forward. In the meantime, Rautiola said he is grateful there is a budget overall.

In other news, CCISD Board Treasurer Nels Christopherson announced he will be resigning from the Regional Education Media Center (REMC) 1 committee and the Copper Country Association of School Boards.