It’s mid-July, a couple of weeks past the Michigan Legislature’s self-imposed deadline to approve a budget, and a budget is still nowhere in sight.
State Representative Joey Andrews tells us lawmakers are home on break right now, but there are still some high-level talks going on.
“The governor, Senate Majority Leader, and the House Speaker are, at least from what we’ve been told, having conferences about the budget,” Andrews said. “But last I heard, there’s quite a bit of distance between where the House Speaker is and where the Senate and the governor are.”
Andrews says there are “quite a few” points of disagreement.
“Primarily, they’ve been discussing the education budget and pretty wide disagreement over pension funding. The Republican House budget cuts to the MPSERS, which is the pension fund for teachers, pretty dramatically. The Senate and the governor don’t want to make any cuts to that. The Republican budget makes cuts to community colleges and universities that are pretty extensive.”
Andrews says they’re anywhere from 3 to 10% across the board. The Democrats don’t want to make any cuts to community colleges. He says as the budget uncertainty continues, he’s heard from school leaders throughout the district they’re having trouble completing their own budgets and conducting union negotiations.
Andrews says the state’s fiscal year will begin on October 1, so that’s the real “drop dead” date for the Legislature to approve something or face a government shutdown. He is predicting the budget battle will continue through September.
