House Speaker Matt Hall and House Appropriations Chair Rep. Ann Bollin speak on the House Floor amid debates on the Fiscal Year 2027 budget on Wednesday. (Katherine Dailey/Michigan Advance photo)

After working late on Wednesday to send 2026-27 fiscal year budget negotiations to the respective leaders of the state House, Senate and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s office, lawmakers on Thursday said they were no closer to a deal than they were the previous evening.

House and Senate Conference committees — which is the final negotiating and development stage of the state’s budget process — were scheduled to meet Thursday around 1 p.m. Both committees, however, gaveled in and immediately went at ease.

On the House side, state Rep. Ann Bollin, R-Brighton Township, chair of the House Appropriations Committee, immediately left the House’s appropriations meeting room on the Capitol’s third floor without addressing why the committee was at ease. The committee was meant to meet to discuss and then vote out the House K-12 and higher education omnibus bill, House Bill 5630.

Across the hall, in the Senate appropriations room on the same floor, state Sen. Sarah Anthony, D-Lansing, chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, similarly gaveled in the meeting only to send it at ease. Anthony’s committee was meant to discuss and vote out Senate Bill 878, the omnibus package funding the whole state government and its agencies.

Anthony did speak with reporters following the meeting. She said that the parties were still negotiating and that a final agreement has not been reached as of 1:30 p.m. Thursday. When asked what the hold up was — policy related bills to make the deal work, funding items within the budget, or disagreements on boilerplate language — Anthony said, “everything.”

“Nothing has been finalized yet, but what we do know is that many of these pieces that we’ve been discussing, the big pieces, things related to Medicaid, things related to our education budget, those areas are still being negotiated now,” Anthony said. “Because we’re in the middle of those negotiations, I can’t say too much. What I can say is that budgets are a statement of values, and I think we don’t all have shared values in this building.”

Either way, the situation led the Legislature to once again not meet its July 1 statutory budget obligation to have a spending plan agreed to, passed and signed by the governor. The hold up has been a point of contention and uncertainty for Michigan’s K-12 schools, which are building their budgets before the start of the fall semester.

Anthony did not say when lawmakers expected to vote on a final budget, potentially leading to either an all-night session deep into this morning, or potentially an adjournment late Thursday evening with the Legislature coming back into an unscheduled session today to finish up.

That timeline also assumes a final budget deal is reached. If one is still elusive by this morning, it is possible that the Legislature resumes its budget battle next week.

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