(Source: MIRS.news, Published 04/11/23) Senate Appropriations Chair Sarah Anthony (D-Lansing) said the expected timeline for the Senate budget approval process is moving it through Appropriations by late May to early June.
Anthony said she knows that the little under two months remaining is ambitious, given that it’s her first time as Appropriations Chair and with a new Democratic majority, but points out that subcommittees are making good progress and having hearings.
Overall, Anthony said she feels it’s going very well, in part because so much of their work aligns with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 executive budget recommendation.
It’s also been impressive seeing committee chairs, people who have never had a gavel before, move past the learning process and begin to make progress, she said.
Moving forward, it’s important to make sure the focus is on big priorities, Anthony said, including continuing to spend federal COVID-19 dollars that she said Republicans left on the table in 2022.
It’s also important to start working on filling buckets of need across the state, with education being one that Anthony referenced as top of mind.
On the House side, Speaker Joe Tate (D-Detroit) said the goal is to have the budget done, “as soon as we can,” with a strong focus on finalizing it in the next several months.
“Moving forward, I know what we have next and what's going to be coming up is budget, budget budget,” Tate said.
When asked if he’s expecting the House to meet the July 1 statutory deadline, Tate said Democrats don’t have a set timeline, but want to ensure the budget is done in a reasonable time to allow local school districts to plan.
He said K-12 and revenue sharing could be broken off earlier, with the rest of the budget passed through later on, but added that July 1 is the target.
Tate said House Democrats' focus will be on advancing safe and strong communities, equitable education, investments in affordable housing, employment and public safety.
“I come from the appropriations side,” Tate said, “so you know, I'm always excited to see us working on the budget.”
In the meantime, several House committees have also held hearings to move the process along, including several ongoing public comment periods during the House Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Appropriations Subcommittee hearings.
But House Minority Leader Matt Hall (R-Kalamazoo) said Republicans aren’t likely to support a budget if Democrats don’t hold up their end of the deal and fully pass out Republican legislation that was promised before spring break.
Hall was referring to an agreement made with Democrats for future legislation that would include tax cuts for small businesses, exemptions to sales and use tax for delivery and installations and industrial processing for aggregate sales, along with two minority appointees to the Michigan Strategic Fund Board.
In exchange, Democrats got Republican support for the $1.338 billion supplemental bill that included $800 million to prepare 1,800 acres near Marshall for a Ford battery plant.
The Republican bills all passed out of the House, but many of them got stuck in the Senate over spring break, which Hall said was a breach of trust on a public agreement.
He said most of the bills are being held by the Senate, but others are being held by Tate, who Hall said hasn't presented them to the governor.
In response, Tate said he believes Leader Hall is probably a bit too concerned.
Nothing is being held up unnecessarily, he said, because those bills were something Democrats supported in a strong fashion when they were voted out.
