Insider Intelligence

This week, the remaining conference committees reported budgets.  This momentum is needed in order for the legislature to wrap-up the budgets for the upcoming fiscal year by their self-imposed deadline of prior to the end of June.  However, House and Senate leadership are pushing for reforms to the teacher’s pension system as part of the […]

This week, legislative movement continued on the budget for the upcoming 2017-2018 Fiscal Year.  Following last week’s approval of the budgets in different forms, the House and Senate appointed conference committee members for each of the budgets.  Additionally, a few of the conference committees negotiated agreements and voted to report their budget from the committee […]

This week, Representative Steven Marino (R-Harrison Twp.) and Representative Diana Farrington (R-Utica) introduced legislation reforming the state’s contingency fund that helps communities deal with disasters.  Under the bills as introduced, the contingency fund would continuously maintain a greater amount of funds that can be used more quickly to help local governments cope with disasters.  Currently […]

Projections for General Fund (GF) revenue were revised down by $178.8 million for the 2017 Fiscal Year.  On a positive note, the revenue earmarked for the School Aid Fund (SAF) has increased from earlier estimates by $152.9 million for the 2017 Fiscal Year, resulting in an overall increase of $25.9 million from the January estimates.  […]

This week, the House and Senate both passed proposed budgets for the upcoming 2017-2018 Fiscal Year.  This was the next step in the process to secure the completion of budgets prior to the self-imposed deadline of early to mid-June. In keeping with past years, the House passed two omnibus budgets; one for K-12, Community Colleges, […]

This week, the House and Senate Appropriations Committees reported budgets for the upcoming 2017-2018 Fiscal Year.  Overall, both committees appropriated less funds than Governor Rick Snyder’s executive recommendations.  In their current forms, the House spends $482.6 million less and the Senate comes in $219.7 million below the Governor’s recommendations. As with prior years, the House […]

This week the House and Senate Appropriations Subcommittees reported the remaining budget bills to the full Appropriations Committees.  This concludes the first step in the budget process for the upcoming 2017-2018 Fiscal Year.  “The House and Senate Appropriations Committees seem to be on track to report their budgets with full chambers taking action on the […]

The 2017-2018 Legislative Session officially began on Wednesday, January 11, with the first day the chambers held session.  Since then, a lot has happened around the Capitol.  The House of Representatives has been busy, especially since many representatives were new to the legislature and both parties are led by new leadership teams.  While the Speaker of […]