22 March — Negotiations among Democratic and Republican legislative leaders and the Governor broke down this afternoon after the two sides were unable to find common ground about new revenue or addressing both fiscal 2007 and fiscal 2008 at the same time. Shortly afterward, Gov. Granholm issued a new Executive Order that specified $344 million in cuts and savings from the General Fund portion of the budget. Republican lawmakers in the Senate made good on their promise to plug the budget hole without raising taxes. They finally went public with their list of additional cuts, pushing through legislation that cut a further $310 million from the General Fund budget and found reductions for the full amount of the School Aid Fund deficit – $377 million – while only cutting foundation allowances for schools by $57 million, or $34 per pupil.
The Governor’s EO cut spending substantially more than her original order (killed by the Senate Appropriations Committee in January), though it still relies on some accounting changes to achieve its reductions. Senate Republicans declared their intention to approve the EO and then proceeded to push through their own package of budget cuts.
SB 221 contains their changes to school aid: along with $262 million in savings from changing how retirement assets are evaluated, Republicans cut a further $135 million in school spending and transferred $10 million from the state lottery that had originally been budgeted for advertising. The bill specifically limits the cuts to school districts to $34 per pupil, worth about $57 million. The remainder of the cuts come from yet-to-be-determined reductions in payments to intermediate school districts (ISDs), line-item reductions in special education and Durant settlement payments, and the elimination of a number of small grant and pilot programs.
The Republican leadership was nervous enough about the vote to call one of their members, Valde Garcia (R-Howell), back from National Guard maneuvers in Arizona. The school aid cuts passed on a 20-18 vote, with one vulnerable Republican – Roger Kahn (R-Saginaw) – joining 17 Democrats in voting against the measure.
Sen. Garcia had to leave before the vote on SB 220 was taken, which contained the remainder of the promised cuts from the General Fund portion of the budget. That bill passed on a straight party-line vote of 20-17. The bill contains $255 million in “hard cuts” to community health spending, revenue sharing to local governments, and economic development. Democrats were quick to criticize the list of cuts that had been secret until recently; “I’m not surprised it took so long to release these cuts,” said Sen. Liz Brater (D-Ann Arbor), “I’d be embarrassed too.”
Comments
Roll call results; protests from Switalski and Clark-Coleman
Voting results from Senate Journal 27:
Roll Call No.36
Yeas—20
Allen, Cropsey, Jansen, Patterson, Birkholz, Garcia, Jelinek, Richardville, Bishop, George, Kuipers, Sanborn, Brown, Gilbert, McManus, Stamas, Cassis, Hardiman, Pappageorge, Van Woerkom
Nays—18
Anderson, Clark-Coleman, Kahn, Scott, Barcia, Clarke, Olshove, Switalski, Basham, Gleason, Prusi, Thomas, Brater, Hunter, Schauer, Whitmer, Cherry, Jacobs
Excused—0
Not Voting—0
Senators [Mickey] Switalski [D-Roseville] and [Irma] Clark-Coleman [D-Detroit], under their constitutional right of protest (Art. 4, Sec. 18), protested against the passage of Senate Bill No.221 and moved that the statements they made during the discussion of the bill be printed as their reasons for voting “no.”
Senator Switalski’s statement is as follows:
“We made a promise to the schoolchildren of this state. We set a high value on their education and we made a promise of a certain level of funding. We’re going back midway through the year and cutting that $34 per student. We’re doing that because we are making a choice that it’s more important to be pure in our determination to not raise a single dime of revenue to make up for this shortfall—not raise any fee, not raise any tax, and not do anything to keep the promise we made to the children of this state. If that is more important than our children’s education, I think we’ve got grossly misplaced priorities. We should vote this bill down.”
Senator Clark-Coleman’s statement is as follows:
“Everywhere I go, all of the schools that I visit, the school leaders and the parents beg me. They say, ‘Please don’t cut education. Please don’t cut K-12.’ We are closing schools in Detroit. We are now closing almost 40 schools. And we are closing them because of reduced enrollment and a lot of other things, but the schools are hemorrhaging They are suffering. At this juncture, this is now the end of March, almost April, schools close in two months. To cut them at this time is unconscionable.
“This is just another example of piecemeal politics on the part of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. These disgusting cuts paint a grim picture for Michigan. You’ve cut $34 per student, and in Detroit, with 116,000 students times 34, that’s more than I can count.
“Most schools have already spent most of that money. How are they going to pay the rest of this year’s bills? This is not a plan which I can support. I support a plan that invests in Michigan, that makes middle school math programs possible, and that provides funds to give children and teachers the tools to succeed. I support a comprehensive plan which contains a mix of cuts, reforms, and revenues. This plan, if you can call it a plan, puts at risk our ability to fund schools, as well as pushing problems into the future. With tricky accounting gimmicks and a scheme that projects possibly unlikely revenues, we have just voted in $344 million in cuts.
“Where are the reforms and the revenues? Is it reasonable to reform an outdated tax structure so we can just say that we kept that philosophy of making no cuts? At whose expense? At the expense of our children, our most precious resources? How dare we sit here at this time and cut our children to the bone like this and not worry about how they are going to finish out this school year. Shame, shame on all of you. “