State budget talks close to finished

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Budget negotiations have been running much smoother than they were a month ago when state legislators battled over balancing Michigan’s budget. With negotiations finalized and Thursday as the start of the new fiscal year, state lawmakers have passed a number of bills to cut down Michigan’s $440 million deficit.

For MSU and other universities, community colleges and K-12 schools, this means a 1 percent increase in funding from last year, said Leslee Fritz, spokeswoman for the Office of the State Budget.

“Which for MSU is a $2.8 million increase,” Fritz said.

The bill, which is currently waiting to be signed by Gov. Jennifer Granholm, also made the delayed payments universities were promised with their October payments.

MSU students would see a return of $26 plus $2.25 per credit hour.

“It’s too little, but that was all we had to work with,” said Rep. Mark Meadows, D-East Lansing. “I’d rather see the 2.5 percent increase Gov. Granholm talked about.”

Had the income tax been increased three-tenths of a percent higher, higher education may have seen the 2.5 percent increase, Meadows said.

About $56 million in need-based tuition grants for private college students was also included in the higher education bills, Fritz said.

“The governor has not said publicly what she will do, but she does have the option to line item veto it,” Fritz said.

Meanwhile, Republicans are hoping Granholm won’t veto the private college aid, among other things that they have negotiated, said Ed Sarpolus, vice president of EPIC-MRA, a Lansing-based polling company.

“The fact is it’s surprising they are getting so much done in a short amount of time,” Sarpolus said. “They came to the realization they don’t want to relive what happened last month.”

Lawmakers were forced to administer a continuation budget in order to avert a government shutdown at the end of September when a budget solution wasn’t reached, that continuation also would end Thursday.

Other issues that have been resolved include privatizing some areas of juvenile justice services and approval of shutting down two state police forensic crime labs in Marquette and Sterling Heights and closing prisons in Jackson and in the Upper Peninsula, Fritz said.

Ashley A. Smith can be reached at smithas7@msu.edu.

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