Michigan Gov. Whitmer presents her budget for the next fiscal year
LANSING, Mich. (CBS DETROIT) - Although 2024 has only just begun, the state budget season is already here. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer presented her budget for fiscal year 2025 to a joint appropriations session on Wednesday.
"This budget actually is smaller than last year's budget, about half a billion dollars less and left in the general fund," Whitmer said. "We also have a mass record resources in our rainy day fund, as well as an education fund, and paid down billions in debt. So we're in a strong fiscal position."
The state is looking at an $80.7 billion budget for the next fiscal year, which begins next October. Whitmer has focused much of her attention and large swaths of funding in this budget for education.
"We know that the smartest investments we can make are in the education of our people," she said. "That starts with our youngest people, and that's why bumping up the goal of having universal pre-K by two years and making it available in this next budget is something that is really important. Ensuring that we level that barrier so that every high school graduate could do two years of community college tuition-free, that inures to their financial benefit immediately of about $23,000 a year just in salary alone based on that credential. And that's just a start."
Within education, she presented an expansion of $159 million in state funding to put towards getting all Michigan children into Pre-K ahead of the previous schedule. Another $30 million expansion to offer community college tuition to Michiganders.
One Republican who serves on the House Appropriations Committee tells CBS News Detroit she's concerned about the spending.
"I think that it was great on talking points, short on the details," said state Rep. Ann Bollin. "It does appear as though it's a lot more special programming for certain target areas. Really not a distribution for everybody."
Whitmer also presented about $37.5 million to create a tax credit for people who care for elderly family members or children with special needs. Bollin tells CBS News Detroit she wants to make sure any programs and initiatives the state continues to fund are successful and effective.
"We continue to invest and reinvest and really have no results," she said. "We still have learning loss and a lot of the programs seem to fall short of meeting the end goal."
It still remains to be seen if the even split in the Michigan House will create any additional challenges when it comes to passing and approving the state budget before the deadline later this year.