Who Won The Attorney General Budget Battle?

(Source: MIRS.news, Published 10/14/2025) This year's Office of Attorney General budget passed out of the Republican-led House this summer with a 30 percent cut, a 48.2 percent General Fund cut and a 15 percent slice in its full-time employee count.

Needless to say, that's not what emerged out of negotiations with the Democratic Senate and the Governor's office earlier this month, but who came across as the winner depends on who you're talking to.

The Attorney General's Office ended up with a 21.1 percent cut in its General Fund appropriations. With a higher reliance on federal money and restricted money, the net cut ended up being 2.6 percent.

Also, Attorney General Dana Nessel didn't end up with fewer employees. She's actually got more than she's ever had, 57 more than her FY '25 total of 627 to 685.

During his Oct. 10 press conference, House Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland) lauded his ability to unroll the Attorney General's office budget. The Fiscal Year '25 budget listed five expenditure items that made up $126 million in spending. “Operations" made up $116 million of the spending alone.

The Fiscal Year '26 budget rolls out “operations” into 31 separate line items, according to the HFA, with full-time employee counts for each item – health care fraud, public service division, corporate oversight, etc. 

“It was one of the hardest parts of the negotiations, but we broke it up into 34 line items,” Hall said. “That's going to make it a lot harder for them to spend money on lawfare.”

Hall also took credit for trimming the General Fund spending on the Attorney General's budget by 21.1 percent, according to the House Fiscal Agency.

This came after he had just complained to the media, "I don't think we're getting enough credit from the press about the significant cuts that have been made to the attorney general's office."

However, the total General Fund dollar amount, $45.28 million, is still higher than the $41 million number from FY ‘21. And while the total AG budget is down 2.6 percent in FY ‘26 to $126.4 million, the AG’s budget saw a 19 percent jump in FY ‘23 and another 20 percent jump in FY ’24 to $142 million. According to the HFA, that was an 80 percent increase since FY '11.

So, while the AG took a 24 percent cut in FY ‘25 as the money was no longer needed to help Detroit and Wayne County with its gun case backlogs or help local prosecutors with their NextGen case management system, the FY’ 25 budget was still $129.7 million, 20 percent higher than it was during the Gov. Rick Snyder years.

Attorney General Dana Nessel

With that backdrop, it's easier to understand why Nessel said during a recent Zoom interview with TV-6 News in Lansing when questioned about the alleged cuts, “I think you ought to take a close look at the budget (and) irrespective of whatever you hear from Speaker Hall, we did very well in the budget process. I'm very pleased with it, and it's not going to affect our operation in any way, shape or form.”

Interestingly, the AG saw an $8.9 million General Fund cut in its operations line item, but a brand new $8 million new line item for the “Attorney General Support Fund.”

The House did not succeed in getting rid of five unclassified positions within the department. The House also wanted the AG to check in with the Legislature any time it wanted to sue the federal government, oil or gas entities. That didn't happen either.

The House didn't want Nessel to continue locking arms with her Democratic AG colleagues as they go after many of President Donald Trump’s domestic policy efforts in the courts.

Asked if she felt the Speaker was using his budget axe to retaliate, Nessel first said, “Yeah, it would seem that way, doesn't it?”

But then, a few moments later, she revisited the issue with something a tad more direct.

Did the Speaker use the budget to even the score on the prosecutions of Mr. Trump?      

"Yeah, absolutely. That is exactly what he tried to do, and he was not successful in doing that."

MIRS has reached out to the Speaker's team for a response.