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Whitmer Signs MI Budget, But With Nearly 150 Vetoes

Michigan Capital
michigan.gov
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has signed Michigan's $59 billion state budget...but included nearly 150 line-item vetoes.

Governor Gretchen Whitmer has signed a $59 billion state budget.  She issued 147 line-item vetoes to block a series of Republican-supported measures.  Kevin Lavery and Cheyna Roth discuss the School Aid budget.

CHEYNA ROTH:

We knew there was probably going to be quite a few of the line item vetoes   across all 16 of those state budgets. We didn't expect her to all-out veto any of the single budgets, because her administration had told state employees to report for duty on Tuesday.

So, we were really expecting to see some sort of line item veto spree and she did not disappoint.  She issued 147 line-item vetoes, just sort of across the board amongst all those different budgets, and they really add up to hundreds of millions of dollars of Republican spending priorities to which she said no.

KEVIN LAVERY:

Let's talk specifically about the School Aid budget.  The vetoes exceed $128 million.  That’s just one budget all by itself. Do we have any sense as to what some of those line item  vetoes are for School Aid?

ROTH:

Not a whole lot yet. The governor has yet to send out a sort of list of all of the things that she has vetoed or any veto letters.  We’re expecting to get those on Tuesday.  That’s because she's got another trick up her sleeve.

She's going to have the State Administrative Board meet on Tuesday and they're going to essentially be gathering to potentially move money around within these budgets.  So, she’s not really done with the budget yet; but from what we know about the School Aid budget, the vetoes exceed about $128 million.  She said that includes legislative pork barrel spending; that’s basically special projects that lawmakers wanted. She says that the spending that she had vetoed “steals from precious classroom dollars and instead hands it out to commercial vendors.”   That's from a statement that she sent out along with the budget.

LAVERY:

One thing the governor and the legislature tussled with back and forth was the idea of her weighted school funding proposal.  That would spend more money for at risk students, special education and career and technical education. The legislature did not want to give her the increases that she had sought, but the final House and Senate conference plan did give up to between $120 and $240 more per student. Do we know if that’s still intact?

ROTH:

Not really.  At this point, it’s still pretty unknown because she hasn't given us a lot of those details. I will say that when it comes to the School Aid budget particularly, that's an interesting one.  This is the budget that Republicans in the state House sort of cut a deal with Democrats in the state House. Democrats in the Senate were not on board with the School Aid budget. This was the first budget that passed amongst all of them. But House Democrats worked together with House Republicans, and a lot of them came forward and said, we're okay with this School Aid budget. So it'll be really interesting to see what was it that she found in that budget that a decent handful of her colleagues agreed with that she decided to veto in that.

LAVERY:

So, it sounds like we still won't have a clear picture of exactly how much funding districts are getting until the State Administrative Board meets.  What do we understand about how this board works, and its ability to shift money around within the budget?

ROTH:

It’s something nobody's really talked about a whole lot since Governor John Engler.  He was the one that first used it back during his administration.  He discovered the powers the governor had to circumvent the legislature.  It’s a go-around that the courts have said, yes; that’s something you can do.

She can't move money from one department to another.  She can’t give money from, say, the corrections budget to the School Aid budget. However, she can move things around within individual budgets, and we'll just kind of have to wait and see exactly how she wants to do that.

The board is made up of members of her administration and fellow Democrats.  She (Gov. Whitmer) won’t be the one that's on the board doing this, but it's pretty clear that whatever they do will be something that she has agreed to, and is on board with.

So we're really just kind of waiting and seeing.  It’s possible that they might not do anything with the budget…but why else would you call the meeting if not to move some money around? So, we're waiting and seeing what exactly she's going to do with all of that.

 

 

Kevin Lavery served as a general assignment reporter and occasional local host for Morning Edition and All Things Considered before retiring in 2023.
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