Michigan Senate Dems finalizing $84.5B budget: Time for House to ‘get serious’

• Michigan Senate OKs 15 budget bills, kicking off the start of final negotiations for the state’s upcoming fiscal year
• Plan includes $3 billion for a potential road funding deal that has yet to materialize
• With July 1 deadline looming, House has yet to act on budget but has approved a stop gap measure to avoid a government shutdown

LANSING — Democrats in the Michigan Senate on Tuesday approved much of their estimated $84.5 billion budget plan for next fiscal year and urged House Republicans to follow suit. 

With the two chambers seemingly at odds over priorities in the first year of a newly divided state government, lawmakers face a statutory deadline to pass the budget by July and must do so by October to avoid a government shutdown. 

It's time for the House “to actually get serious about the job at hand," Sen. Sarah Anthony, a Lansing Democrat and chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, told Bridge Michigan. 

While important votes on the Senate education budget and three others still loom, Democrats advanced 15 other spending bills on Tuesday. 

Among them: A transportation budget that includes $3 billion for “restricted contingency authorization" — a placeholder for funding from a potential long-term road funding deal legislators are still attempting to negotiate with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. 

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Other spending plans approved Tuesday included: $100 million for the state to conduct an economic stress test over potential impacts of international tariffs and a reduction in federal funding on Michigan; $63 million to offset a decrease in federal child care funds; and $58 million to expand the KidsRx program, which provides women with money during their pregnancy and during the first year of their child’s life.

The Democratic budget bills passed in a series of party-line votes. While several Senate Republicans acknowledged some aspects of the plan that they liked, they took issue with the overall increase in government spending. 

The overall $84.5 billion plan would represent a roughly 2% increase over the record $83 billion budget Whitmer signed last year and the $83.5 billion version the governor proposed in February. 

“It’s often stated that budgets are priorities, and right now, we need to make sure that we address the issues and real challenges facing families across our state,” Sen. Mark Huizenga, R-Walker, said in a floor speech before voting against one of the many budget bills.

The Senate votes, which are expected to continue Wednesday, come ahead of Friday's Consensus Revenue Estimating Conference. There, Michigan officials will revisit a fiscal forecast from January which helped inform the state budget process while offering forecasts of both the state and national economy through 2027. 

While the next fiscal year doesn’t begin until Oct. 1, lawmakers in recent years have shot to finalize a state budget ahead of a self-imposed July 1 deadline. 

Michigan House Speaker Matt Hall, R-Richland Township, has declined to commit to that July 1 deadline, which school groups favor because it gives them time to plan their own budgets over summer for the next academic year. 

Hall on Tuesday criticized the Senate budget plan, calling it "crazy" and arguing it is easy to pass a spending plan by "just tacking 3% on top of whatever they did last year."

He has said House Republicans are scrutinizing budgets for potential cuts that could allow for more road funding and a 0.2% income tax cut the lower chamber approved in March with some Democratic support. 

The Senate, Hall said Tuesday, “would benefit from more time working on that budget,” rather than pass a similar budget to last year’s but with increased spending, as “it’s not very creative.”

While the House has not yet advanced any budget bills, Republicans in March introduced and quickly approved what Hall called a "government shutdown prevention plan": A roughly $20 billion proposal to continue funding schools and other basic government services if lawmakers cannot balance the budget by October 1. 

Democrats have dismissed the effort as posturing. 

“It demonstrates that they are playing political games with, honestly, real people’s lives,” said Anthony, the Senate Appropriations chair.