House Passes Omnibus Budgets

Liz Gullett

Apr 29, 2016

This week, the House passed both omnibus budgets appropriating funds for the upcoming 2016-2017 Fiscal Year. The omnibus budget providing funding to K-12 schools, community colleges, and universities totals $16.17 billion. The House’s increase to funding for universities is below the level Governor Rick Snyder recommended. The Governor proposed increasing funding to get all universities back to pre-2011 levels, however under the House’s budget there would be five universities who would not be brought back to that level. While the executive recommendations would have increased university operation funding by $59.8, the Houses proposal would only increase the funding by $46.3 million. For community colleges, the House would increase operations funding by 3.4%, to be distributed under the performance funding formula. In the K-12 section of the budget, the House proposes removing M-STEP and the Michigan Merit Exam, something democratic caucus members took issue with. Another change from the executive recommendations is the House did not include the requested $9 million to provide funding for testing school buildings water system for lead.

The omnibus budget providing funding for state departments totals $38.68 billion. Key components of the budget include $108.6 for Health Michigan, $500,000 to address staffing levels at the Grand Rapids Veterans Home, and $2.6 million for lawsuit settlements from the Flint water crisis. Both budgets will be sent to the Senate for consideration.

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