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Breaking down new $81B state budget including school focus, 'pork'

By Tim Skubick and David Komer
Published  June 29, 2023 9:49pm EDT
Michigan
FOX 2 Detroit

New state budget of $81 billion includes focus on education

Somebody in Lansing joked last night that it was like Christmas in July as lawmakers dolled out your tax dollars to the tune of $81 billion and loose change.

LANSING, Mich. (FOX 2) - Somebody in Lansing joked last night that it was like Christmas in July as lawmakers dolled out your tax dollars to the tune of $81 billion and loose change.

A partial list of the 1,600-page state budget compiled by Gov Gretchen Whitmer's office as she and the special interest groups that got a big chunk of the money applauded the first democratically-controlled state budget in 40 years.

School kids will divvy up part of the $24.3-billion state funding for public schools including:

  • $160 million for a free breakfast and lunch program.
  • $328 million to beef up school security and other infrastructure programs.
  • $5,600 pre-school kids will get a free pre-education with a $225 million state grant.

But 50 House Republicans did not vote for this package, which included $9,700 for every school kid.

Among the increase for higher education is $112 million to, in part, beef up security on college campuses.

$3 million to implement gun violence protection programs.

The state will train another 50 new state police officers and buy $14 million worth of body cameras for prison correction officers.

There are $21 million to create more charging stations for electric vehicles.

Lawmakers also approved $950 million for their pet projects - some call it "pork."

"I can't face my neighbors and explain why they need to pay for their college, daycare and child delivery costs, when so many inmates and prisons will be offered free tuition and the like to get their bachelors and offset other costs," said Rep. Andrew Beeler, (R-Fort Gratiot). "And Madam Speaker, for the life of me, I will never be able to explain why we spent $100,000, an almost twice the median income for Michiganders, on a poet laureate, who does -  I still don't know what."

The governor will veto some of this stuff but the bulk of the $81 billion record budget she will sign, which is costing every resident in Michigan about $9,000 per person.