Lawmakers OK K-12 fund hike, film incentives; Medicaid boost is out

By Kathleen Gray Detroit Free Press Lansing Bureau

   In quick fashion Tuesday, the state Legislature began wrapping up the 2013-14 budgets, moving a $50-billion budget toward final passage.

   Schools and municipalities will get more funding, $50 million was approved for film incentives and $2.5 million was placed in the natural resources budget to help manage Belle Isle, if Detroit agrees. But other efforts, such as Gov. Rick Snyder’s push to expand Medicaid coverage to 470,000 more low-income residents, were left on the table.

   “The quality of the budget, it’s OK,” said state Sen. Roger Kahn, R-Saginaw and chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. “No budget is great. They’re all sausage, there isn’t a filet in the lot.”

   Democrats said the budget shortchanges Michigan’s most vulnerable, primarily by excluding federal dollars for an expansion of Medicaid.

   “This budget is built on huge tax increases imposed on middle class families over the last three years,” said House Minority Leader Tim Greimel, D-Auburn Hills. “There are positives in this budget, but they do not outweigh the negatives.”

   The House of Representatives passed the budgets on mostly party-line votes Tuesday afternoon and the Senate is expect to do the same today.

   The budgets:

   • K-12: $13.2 billion. Public schools will get a roughly 3% increase, bumping the per-pupil foundation grant $60 from $6,966 to $7,026. And $65 million was added for early childhood education.

   • Department of Education: $298 million. Adopted without language that would allow for the implementation of Common Core curriculum standards already in use by 45 states and approved by the Michigan Department of Education.

   • General Government: $4.4 billion: Includes a 2.9% increase for constitutional revenue sharing for cities, villages and townships to $737.2 million and a 4.8% increase in revenue sharing to counties to $116.6 million; a $75-million boost to the state’s rainy day fund; $50 million for the film incentive program; $230 million for roads; $29 million for the Pure Michigan tourism campaign.

   • Transportation: $3.6 billion. Creates a priority roads investment fund of $115 million that will be divvied up from a list developed from individual legislators; $19.3 million for Amtrak’s Wolverine rail line that runs from Chicago to Pontiac.

   • Human Services: $6 billion. Funding for about 450 new caseworkers in DHS. It also will keep three residential facilities for juvenile offenders open.

   • Community Health: $15.3 billion. Does not include an expansion of Medicaid. The budget does include: $11.6 millionmore for the Healthy Kids dental program; $5 million for mental health innovation grants; $2 million for local public health services; $1.2 million for a lead abatement program in areas that have high incidences of lead-poisoned children; $2 million for an infant mortality reduction program; $500,000 for senior citizen nutrition services, and $700,000 for a pregnancy support program which would promote alternatives to abortion.

   • Michigan State Police: $606 million. $3 million more for daily and event security at the Capitol complex. $14.6 million for a state trooper recruit school, which will train 107 new state police officers.

   • Military and Veterans Affairs: $166.7 million. Added $1.7 million to hire 12 workers to address issues at the Grand Rapids Veterans Home and $850,000 for the Jacobetti Veterans Home in Marquette.

   • Natural Resources: $342 million. Includes a restructuring and increase in hunting, fishing and off-road vehicle license fees, adding $14 million in revenues for the department ; $4 million to hire more conservation officers; $2.5 million for DNR to manage Belle Isle in Detroit if the city agrees.

   • Environmental Quality: $517 million. Includes $100 million in funding for grants and loans to communities for sewer upgrades and wetland grants.

   • Universities and community colleges: $335.9 million for community colleges and $1.4 billion for universities. Included 2% increases for both community colleges and universities with a performance incentive if tuition increases are capped at 3.75%. The universities budget also includes language that would prohibit benefits for any adult who lives with a university employee, but is not a spouse or dependent — aimed at same-sex couples.

   • Agriculture: $80.1 million. Includes: $1 million for a food industry growth initiative to remove barriers to increased food production.

   • Insurance and Financial Services: $75.3 million. Reduced new money for autism coverage by $4 million.