House To Senate: Fix Your Budget To Updated CREC Numbers

(Source: MIRS.news, Published 05/21/2025) The House Republicans made a formal call to the Democratic-run Senate to amend the budget they passed last week since it no longer matches Friday's new Consensus Revenue Estimating Conference (CREC) numbers.

Left floating out there, however, is the fact the House has yet to pass a Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 budget bill from subcommittee.

Rep. Matt Maddock (R-Milford)'s HR 113 reads that the Senate should request the bills passed last week be returned to their chamber rather than the House taking it up and zeroing it out, since it would require the House to consider an "unconstitutional, unbalanced budget" to make it "legal."

Senate Appropriations Chair Sarah Anthony (D-Lansing) entered the House chamber around 2:40 p.m. after catching wind of the resolution. She approached the House Democratic communications staff and proceeded to the press desk to answer questions before moving to the hallway off the floor.

Michigan's Capitol building.

"I don't have time for an hour or two-hour-long press conferences, but at some point we have to start engaging with the media and letting the public know the shenanigans that are happening in this moment," Anthony said to reporters that cover the House.

She called the resolution "fake" and a "political stunt" to direct the Senate to do what they've already done, which is to make steps toward a balanced budget.

"The fact that they took time to draft a resolution directing us to do our job in a world in which they have not presented anything besides a stop-gap measure months before a budget shutdown is on anyone's radar is ridiculous," Anthony said.

The problem in the Senate budget was made apparent after the CREC Friday that showed the Wednesday-passed Senate budget to cause a deficit.  Anthony said the budget they passed was based on numbers from the January CREC, hence why it doesn't match updated projections.

Anthony said the Senate and Executive Office of the Governor made their budget goals public based on January numbers, and they were balanced based on what was current at the time.

Anthony said under normal circumstances, lawmakers would take the recommendations from the House, the Senate and the executive and then come up with budget targets that would be based on the latest numbers. She said it's not been common practice in the past to use May CREC numbers as a starting point for budget negotiations.

When asked how she obtained a copy of the first page of the resolution, she said someone texted it to her.

Anthony said while this is going on, her team is thinking about the next steps on how to address potential federal cuts or economic strains caused by federal economic policy.

Minority Leader Ranjeev Puri (D-Canton) said during a media availability earlier in the day that the process the Senate followed to pass their budget was responsible and said there is a deep contrast between the Senate budget and the appropriations bill passed earlier this term meant to serve as a government shutdown prevention plan.

"We saw the Republicans pass a budget, almost in haste, without negotiation. We were presented the budget with under an hour for deliberation on our own part with no negotiation," Puri said. "In the Dem trifecta, a budget was passed on time, every single time."

Anthony said if the House Republicans want to use their stop-gap bills HB 4161 and HB 4162 as their starting point, then she'll do that, but it means that 100 percent of families on Medicaid would lose access to it since they zeroed out the Department of Health and Human Services budget.

When asked if he would be open to passing the School Aid budget by July 1 and a General Fund budget by Sept. 30, Puri said it's his understanding that passing the two at the same time is the most responsible approach.

Puri said if a School Aid budget isn't passed on time, it will lead to financial uncertainty in school districts that could cause teachers to be "pink-slipped" and put on leave.

Puri said the start of summer break is supposed to be fun, and getting back to school in the fall is about buying supplies, finding out which teacher you'll have and talking to your friends about whose class they got assigned to.

"Can you imagine that your favorite teacher was fired just because of one man being irresponsible and not wanting to get a budget done on time?" Puri said.

Puri said he's observed that House Appropriations Subcommittee chairs aren't being empowered to pass budgets that would start the appropriate discussions to see where the priorities are.

"As much as Matt Hall and the Republicans want to yell and scream, the reality is that they cannot pass a budget into a Public Act by themselves," Puri said. "If you want a budget, then you're going to have to work bipartisan and bicameral."

Puri said House Republicans have done nothing to demonstrate that that is the approach they want to take, adding that their work continues to be insular and not transparent. He said by this time last year, the House Democrats had House versions of the budgets passed through the committee process.

"We're at a crossroads right now. I cannot emphasize enough that this is a self-created catastrophe that we are in. We don't need to be doing this. We can get the budget done on time. We can solve these issues," Puri said.

Puri said he's asking for House Republicans to come to the negotiating table to have meaningful deliberations rather than rubber stamping the talking points coming out of D.C. or communicating through the press corps.

"That's just now how meaningful legislation gets done. That's how you enact political theater. That's how you make sure that you are driving more views to your social media channels, which is just not an effective way to govern," Puri said.