On Tuesday, the Michigan House of Representatives passed a $56.6 billion omnibus budget for the upcoming fiscal year, which begins on October 1. Along with the $21.9 billion School Aid budget (passed in June), the House is proposing a total 2026 Fiscal Year budget of $78.5 billion, which is a 3.7% reduction from the current year. The overall budget is 6% smaller than the governor’s proposed budget and 7.2% lower than the Senate’s budget proposal.
Key Points:
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- House Bill 4706 passed by a vote of 59-45. All Republicans and one Democratic member voted in favor, while all but one Democratic member voted in opposition.
- The budget funds most state departments, the legislature, and the executive office.
- $3.4 billion in new, ongoing funding to fix local roads.
- Establish a $115 million Public Safety Trust Fund to help local communities.
- Creates a new research and development tax credit with the goal of encouraging investment, innovation, and job creation.
- The budget brings back the requirement for departments to post performance dashboards, requires public reports on severance pay awarded to state employees, and establishes new reporting on work projects.
House Appropriations Chair Ann Bollin (R-Brighton) said they went line-by-line to identify funding items to be eliminated, including:
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- Cutting 4,300 state jobs, which, according to the chairwoman, were phantom employees. This freed up $560 million.
- Using $2.5 billion of unobligated, unspent project funding to pay off road bonds.
- Eliminated funding to the SOAR program and the statewide EV charging program.
The budget will be sent to the Senate for consideration.
