Family leads pro-voucher funding with $4.5 million

LANSING (AP) - Members of the DeVos family have contributed more than a third of the $12.9 million raised by the pro-voucher Kids First! Yes! campaign but other well-known business executives also have stepped in to help fund the campaign, according to campaign finance reports.

Amway Corp. President Dick DeVos and his wife Betsy, former chairwoman of the state GOP, are among those leading the effort to pass the statewide referendum on the Nov. 7 ballot. The measure would require poorly performing school districts to offer vouchers that students could use at private or parochial schools

Among the largest Kids First! Yes! contributors are Dick and Betsy DeVos, $550,000; his parents, Amway Corp. co-founder Richard DeVos and his wife, Helen, $2 million; and her mother, Elsa Prince, $2 million.

The group opposing vouchers, ALL Kids First!, has raised $5.3 million over the course of the campaign, according to records filed Friday with the Michigan Secretary of State's office. Teacher unions and school administrators are among the group's most generous supporters.

Among those contributing the most to ALL Kids First! were the Michigan Education Association and National Education Association, which have given about $5.4 million combined. The Michigan Association of School Administrators gave at least $195,000.

Besides getting help from the DeVoses, the pro-voucher campaign has received large donations from Wal-Mart heir John Walton, who contributed $2 million, and Domino's Pizza founder Tom Monaghan, who gave $350,000. Amway co-founder and Chairman Jay Van Andel donated $25,000.

Catholic dioceses across Michigan also contributed heavily. The Archdiocese of Detroit gave about $1.5 million, the Diocese of Lansing donated nearly $445,000 and the Diocese of Saginaw contributed $156,000.

Dan Piepszowski, Christian Service director for the Archdiocese of Detroit, said the archdiocese contributed money from its investments and other savings to push the voucher effort. The donations aren't coming "from people in the pews," he said.

He said donations to the voucher group are comparable to the archdiocese's contributions to the successful fight against the assisted suicide ballot issue in 1998.

If it passes, Proposal 00-1 would give vouchers worth about $3,300 to public school students in failing school districts and to students already attending private schools - including Catholic schools - in those districts.

Although Kids First! Yes! has spent $12.4 million on its campaign, support for vouchers in Michigan has dropped substantially in the past month.

A recent Detroit News/Mitchell Poll shows 56 percent oppose Proposal 1, 29 percent support it and 15 percent are undecided. The Oct. 23-25 poll of 600 likely voters had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. The measure also is failing in other recent polls.

As Kids First! Yes! goes into the final week of the campaign, it has $476,196 left in the bank. That's exactly where the group wants to be, said campaign spokesman Greg McNeilly. Ads for the rest of the campaign already have been paid for and the group is not giving up its fight, he said.