state budget

The plan provides nearly $5 billion less than the current state budget. Some of the departments that took the biggest hits include Health and Human Services, Labor and Economic Opportunity, and Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy.

Budget bills are starting to move at the state Capitol as lawmakers attempt to get an earlier start on crafting a spending plan for the coming fiscal year and avert a deadlock similar to last year’s standoff.

The Whitmer administration and Michigan House Republicans have agreed to put a legal fight over GOP-ordered budget cuts on hold because a settlement may be in sight.

The Michigan House approved a more than $152 million spending bill Monday to work on runways at Michigan’s Selfridge Air National Guard” base.The base is expecting federally-funded construction to support a new fighter mission that President Donald Trump announced last year.Michigan House Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Twp) said he fears that mission won’t actually happen if the work isn’t done before Trump leaves office.

The issue started in December when the Republican-led Michigan House Appropriations Committee, by itself, tried to cancel around $650 million in earmarked funds, claiming it was unspent money from a previous state budget and should be reallocated to the general fund.

“Literacy is the number one priority of the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) and State Board of Education,” Michigan’s new Superintendent of Instruction, Glenn Maleyko, said in a statement when the proposed budget was announced.

Republican House Speaker Matt Hall says a flattening revenue projection means the Legislature will have to make deeper cuts this year.

A Michigan judge has issued a preliminary injunction to stop the state from spending roughly $645 million from a past budget cycle.

State officials have reduced their expectations for tax revenue growth, which will require austerity budgeting heading into the next fiscal year.

In a formal opinion, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel says cuts to the current fiscal year budget that were ordered last month by the GOP-led House Appropriations Committee are unconstitutional.