LANSING (WKZO) — The Governor submitted a 54-billion dollar state budget proposal to the legislature on Wednesday. Most budgets are fluid documents that have to be flexible to deal with changing revenue streams, unexpected windfalls and disasters and have to weigh current priorities, demands and obligations.
This latest budget has other unknowns and moving parts to deal with, like a May vote that could impact several departments.
There are tax deals that have been cut with major employers in the last decade that come crashing in out of the blue, sucking hundreds of millions at a time out of the state treasury.
Governor Snyder admitted to the media yesterday that even he can’t get a full accounting of those deals because of the way they were structured.
Yesterday, along with his proposed budget, he submitted an executive order trimming tens of millions that he hopes will be saved by merging Human Services and the Health Department, reducing the size of this year’s State Police Academy and from corrections cuts.
Democrats call that just shifting the burden of government further onto the backs of Michigan’s working population, while major corporations get a free ride. Those cuts only address about a third of the shortfall, meaning more cuts are coming.
The Snyder budget calls for a 1% increase in per-pupil spending with 48-million more for a 3rd grade reading initiative, and 36-million more for vocational and skilled trades courses. There is also more money for at-risk students, children’s dental care and to bolster the teacher’s pension plan.
The proposal also calls for a 2% increase in college funding if the four year colleges limit tuition hikes to 2.8%.
Kalamazoo Democratic Representative Jon Hoadley says it’s not so much an increase in education funding as a shift, tapping surplus dollars in the school aid fund that should be going into the schools anyway, only this time with strings and limits attached.
Kalamazoo Schools Finance Director Gary Start says another 1% increase in the base foundation grant will mean giving more ground to inflation.
The League for Public Policy gave the Governor high marks for restoring the money given for at-risk children and higher education, but they say they are concerned about the millions he says can be saved by merging Human Services with the Department of Health.
They say both have lean staffs already with high client loads and the League is concerned those departments, which serve the poorest among us, could lose more staff.
Both Rep. Brandt Iden and Senator Margaret O’Brien says they support the governor’s efforts to promote skilled trades training in the state but both agree that the work is now just beginning on getting the budget resolved.
