The Michigan State Capitol building in Lansing. (Susan J. Demas/Michigan Advance)

The long-awaited Michigan House of Representatives budget landed Tuesday, moving the showdown over how to fund the state into its next phase – negotiations on a consensus spending plan.

Members of the House voted Tuesday to pass a substitute version of House Bill 4706 along party lines. The vote was 59 aye votes to 45 nay votes, and the bill was given immediate effect.

The House budget would fund the state’s various departments with $54.63 billion, with $12.09 billion to the General Fund.

When including the budgets that were passed for K-12 schools, higher education and departments dealing with education – the Michigan Department of Education and the Michigan Department of Lifelong Education, Advancement and Potential – the House’s total fiscal year 2025-26 budget proposal comes to $78.5 billion in gross funding.

By comparison, the Senate’s budget that passed in May – excluding community colleges, higher education, the education departments and school aid funding K-12 – is $60.28 billion, with $13.04 billion coming from the General Fund.

According to figures provided to reporters by House Republicans, the Senate’s total budget, including those education pieces, comes to $84.5 billion. The Senate Fiscal Agency estimates that number to be $84.6 billion.

House Speaker Matt Hall, R-Richland Township, and several members of his appropriations team spoke with reporters following House session on Tuesday. Hall continued his theme of claiming the House cut $5 billion from last year’s budget to root out “waste, fraud and abuse,” and that his version of the spending plan sets better priorities for taxpayer dollars, roads, public safety and education.

“We stopped the lobbyists and the politicians and the bureaucrats dead in their tracks,” Hall said. “We put the people first with this budget, investing in their priorities.”

State Rep. Ann Bollin, R-Brighton, chair of the House Appropriations Committee, said the process took a little longer than some expected or wanted, but the process was “well worth it.”

“Not only are we cutting the waste, fraud and abuse, but we’re investing where it matters most to Michigan families: education, public safety, our infrastructure, fixing our roads,” Bollin said. “We’re taking care of our most vulnerable. A lot of people are very, very concerned. (They have said,) ‘Oh my gosh, to have a budget that’s under $80 billion, you must have had to gut a lot.’ No, we didn’t have to gut, we just had to cut and reset what our priorities are.”

Bollin said that the team was looking forward to the next step in the process, which the appropriations chair said was to rein in government, this time at the negotiating table with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks, D-Grand Rapids.

Indeed, passage of the House bill occurred after Hall met Tuesday with Brinks and Whitmer to discuss the path forward after months of verbal grenade throwing and sparring on the budget timeline.

Brinks, in a statement provided to Michigan Advance, said there was much work to be done but the distractions between the two chambers needed to end.

“I have made my disappointments and frustrations about entering September without a House budget proposal abundantly clear,” Brinks said. “It’s 36 days until October 1, and we have a lot of work to do. It’s work that we can accomplish, but the games and distractions need to end.”

The governor’s office also acknowledged the meeting and called it productive.

“Today, Governor Whitmer sat down with Senate Majority Leader Brinks and Speaker Hall to discuss the state budget,” Whitmer spokesperson Bobby Leddy told the Advance. “It was a productive meeting, and our team will stay in close touch with legislators and their staff over the next month to get this done.”

All was not totally in order between the two chambers after that meeting, however, as Hall continued to pressure the Senate on its lack of a roads plan.

Although Senate Democrats have said that it was the House and Hall who were holding up the process, the eyes of the state now turn toward the upper chamber of the Legislature to deliver a roads plan in enough time to move negotiations forward – and before the Sept. 30 constitutional deadline to have a budget passed by both chambers and negotiated by the triumvirate of the House, Senate and governor.

If talks go later, a government shutdown would be soon to follow.

Bollin addressed the new spotlight on the Senate Democrats during Hall’s press conference.

“We’ve said, and the governor has said, ‘Show us your roads plan,'” Bollin said. “‘Well, we can’t show you our roads plan. Show us your budget.’ Well, guess what? They have our budget now. We did it.”

Hall gave kudos to his team for taking ownership of their respective budget areas in ways he claimed past chairs hadn’t.

State Rep. Matt Maddock, R-Milford, vice chair of the House Appropriations Committee, praised Hall for allowing them to have that latitude.

House Democrats derided the budget bill on the House floor, including state Rep. Alabas Farhat, D-Dearborn, who was removed from the position as minority vice chair of the House Appropriations Committee after a political standoff with Hall and Democrats on a policy bill unrelated to the budget.

“When I look at this budget and how it reflects the values of our state, how it reflects the best of us, I ask, what virtue is there in a budget that cuts $6 billion in spending?” Farhat said. “What virtue is in a budget that erodes our corrections workers, laying off 775 full time employees? Where is the virtue for the Michiganders who look to this chamber, who look to our leadership, to ensure that they have health care, child care and affordable housing, and see these programs zeroed out?”

Farhat noted that the state’s Great Seal says “I will defend” in Latin.

“I wonder, who are we defending in this budget?” Farhat said. “Are we defending the working families of our state that rely on doctors who qualify under (a) … program that doesn’t exist anymore? Are we defending the working families that need child care so they can watch their kids and their kids can grow and have a future worth living? Or are we trying to defend the special interests of the state?”

Farhat concluded by saying that the Republican House budget would allow the state to “slide back into a position of mediocrity,” and that instead of leading on key issues and spending, the House was “retreating from the frontier of bold ideas and investments.”

Mixed reactions to the House GOP budget

On health care related spending, the Michigan Association of Ambulance Services praised House Republicans for prioritizing essential funding for emergency services, including a Medicaid funding fix and repayment to EMS services that former state prison system vendors have left unpaid.

“Michigan EMS providers give their all to protect the health and safety of residents across the state and the House budget ensures that they would be paid appropriately for doing so,” Angela Madden, the ambulance association’s executive director, said in a statement. “Our agencies were promised a reimbursement increase in 2021 but it was never implemented properly, shortchanging agencies for their work for the past four years. This House budget fixes that mistake and corrects payment levels so EMS agencies can focus on saving lives.”

Madden said the $6 million for backpay racked up by the state’s prisons was much appreciated, and urged the Senate and Whitmer to include that funding in a final, negotiated conference committee budget for the state.

The state’s hospitals had a different view.

Brian Peters, CEO of the Michigan Health and Hospital Association, in a statement, said the proposed House budget guts hospital funding and would be disastrous “if even a semblance of the cuts eventually makes it into the state budget.”

“Michigan hospitals already stand to lose more than $6 billion over the next 10 years due to federal budget cuts,” Peters said. “Slashing more funding that supports delivering healthcare services and the nurses, physicians and other staff employed by hospitals harms Michigan and our more than 10 million residents.”

Peters added that hospitals were already bracing for busier emergency departments, sicker patients and higher rates of uncompensated care.

“We are extremely disappointed in the message being sent to healthcare providers to do more with less,” Peters said. “Hospitals can only stretch resources so far before it impacts their ability to provide the care our communities need. Hospitals need a real budget by Sept. 30 that supports healthcare and those who show up to work every day to care for Michiganders.”

Hall at one point in his presser said he was disappointed in the statements coming out from hospitals about the budget processing, alluding to them siding more with Democrats in their talking points.

“They’re really getting a little too political,” Hall said during his presser.

In his statement issued after the budget passed the House, Peters echoed Brinks by warning the House that it was time to stop playing political games of their own and to negotiate with real solutions in mind.

The Michigan League for Public Policy and Michigan AFL-CIO both blasted the House’s budget work product.

“Michigan House Republicans asked for an extension and then waited until the last second to turn in the assignment – with zero hearings or public input,” Ron Bieber, president of the Michigan AFL-CIO, said in a statement. “This budget is being balanced on the backs of workers. Their lack of planning should not constitute an emergency for Michiganders – but it’s headed that way.”

Bieber urged Republican lawmakers to get serious and stop playing political games with the budget.

“Real people’s lives and livelihoods are at stake,” Bieber said. “They deserve better than political stunts.”

Monique Stanton, president and CEO of the Michigan League for Public Policy, called the House plan irresponsible, rife with deep and harmful cuts to health care, human services and environmental health, to name a few.

“At a time when people are still reeling from the huge impacts that the federal Republican megabill will have on their lives, Republicans in the Michigan House have decided to double down and cause even more harm,” Stanton said.

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