By Dr. Nikolai P. Vitti, Superintendent, Detroit Public Schools Community District
On August 4th, a single line on the back of your ballot will help decide what the next generation of Detroit students can count on. It’s called Proposal S, and I want to be direct about what this vote is — and just as importantly, what it isn’t.
Every school district in Michigan is required to do this. Local millages happen across the state for all 539 school districts; they are not unique to DPSCD or Detroit and are required by the state to receive state funding.
This is not a new tax. For years, Detroit’s Operating Millage has gone toward paying off Detroit Public Schools legacy debt; this was debt tied to retirement obligations, operating bonds, and an emergency loan issued when our District was restructured to survive. That debt will be fully repaid this September. This is to be celebrated! Once the debt is completely paid off this September, a “yes” for Proposal S allows those funds to be used directly by Detroit Public Schools Community District. This includes funding for employees, school programming, and everything else that runs the District.
Homeowners and renters will pay nothing. Proposal S applies to business property and non-homestead property, just as the current millage does. If you own or rent the home you live in, this proposal costs you nothing. This tax is paid by businesses in the City that own property so they can fairly contribute to the educational future of our City.
Over the past decade, I have spent my time as Superintendent working alongside our School Board, our teachers and staff, students, and our families to rebuild trust in the District and to show real progress. Our graduation rate has grown from 64% in 2021 to 83% in 2025, narrowing the gap with the state to less than one percentage point. DPSCD students are outpacing 91% of districts nationwide on academic recovery in literacy and mathematics since the pandemic according to national studies. In fact, our Black students are showing more improvement than 95% of their peers throughout the country since the pandemic. Beginning teacher salaries have improved from $35K to $55K, and our most veteran teachers will now make over $100K as compared to $65K when I started. This has reduced teacher vacancies from over 400 to less than a dozen annually. We have restored music and art programming throughout the District, expanded athletics, hired guidance counselors at all of our schools, and ensured mental health services at our all schools for our students. We are building a brand-new Pershing and Cody High School, and all of our schools, with a few exceptions, will have air conditioning by 2029. Progress is happening, and none of that happened by accident, and none of it is guaranteed to continue without stable, predictable leadership and funding.
If Proposal S does not pass in August, then this goes back on the ballot in November. If it fails again, then the District will have to hold a special election in May, at a cost of roughly $1 million. Beyond that cost, the stakes are high: without this revenue, the District faces a ~$120 million shortfall that would put employment, student programming, and our progress at risk. This is a chance to lock in the progress we have made together and continue the momentum forward!
Detroit voters deserve full information on what this vote does and does not do. I want to be as transparent as possible: this proposal replaces an expiring tax structure with an equivalent one, at no new cost to residents, so that our schools don’t lose funding at the very moment our operating debt is finally behind us.
Our students didn’t create the financial challenges the District has worked through over the past decade to overcome and should not be the ones who suffer through an uninformed or protest vote regarding Proposal S. Please do the right thing on August 4th and vote “yes” to support our local millage.