LANSING, MI (WKZO AM/FM) — Governor Whitmer has announced that she has signed the State budget for the next year just hours before a government shutdown would be issued.
According to an official press release, Whitmer has signed all 16 state budgets and issued 147 line-item vetoes to protect Michiganders public health and safety, access to healthcare and classroom spending.
The line-item vetoes included the School Aid budget, which exceeded $128 million, as well as $375 million in one-time road funding. Whitmer says that she will continue to work on a long-term solution to fix Michigan roads.
“The Republican budgets were a complete mess, and today I used my executive powers to clean them up to protect Michiganders,” Whitmer said in the press release. “The state’s budget is a reflection of our values, and make no mistake that public health and safety, access to health care, and protecting classroom spending is more important than handouts to lobbyists and vendors.”
The press release notes that the Republican budgets cut the following:
- Republicans cut $185 million from the governor’s proposed School Aid Fund budget, including:
- $60 million cut from special education,
- $97 million cut to at-risk students,
- $45 million cut to career and technical education students, and
- $80 million cut from the Great Start Readiness Program, which provides preschool to low-income families in Michigan. Governor Whitmer’s proposed budget would have expanded access to pre-k for more than 5,000 Michigan kids.
- Republicans cut $61.5 million to install hydration stations in Michigan schools to ensure every child has clean, safe drinking water.
- Republicans cut $48 million from the Department of Corrections and unlawfully appropriates work projects to cover funding gaps.
- These cuts would likely:
- Prevent the opening of the new Vocational Village at the Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility and could threaten the closure of the two existing villages in the next fiscal year,
- Lead to nearly 100 layoffs,
- And would cease the monitoring of sex offenders and other criminals by not replacing 4,000 GPS tethers.
- Republicans cut nearly $53 million from the Department of Technology, Management and Budget, including a cut to operations spending that would hurt Michiganders’ public safety, weaken cybersecurity, and force up to 150 layoffs.
- Republicans cut $33 million to the Department of Health and Human Services from the governor’s proposal and failed to fund the implementation of their own work requirement laws that Governor Whitmer signed on September 23, potentially kicking tens of thousands of Michiganders off their health care and devastate families across the state.
“The legislature is broken. Talking point budgets don’t fix our fundamental problems as a state. The budgets they passed don’t do enough to give our schools the resources they need to educate our kids,” Whitmer said. “They won’t protect our communities, ensure clean, safe drinking water in our schools, and they won’t do a damn thing to fix the roads. While line item vetoes can only clean up so much of this mess, additional steps will be needed to protect Michiganders, protect access to health care, and help close the skills gap, and it will take Republicans and Democrats working together to get it done.”
In total, Whitmer vetoed nearly $1 billion in proposed Republican spending.
