Capitol News
February 11, 2024
The Governor gave her State of the State Address on January 24 to a joint session of the Legislature. In the Governor’s Proposed 2023-2025 Budget Message given to a joint meeting of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees in the new Heritage Hall adjacent to the Capitol two weeks later on February 7, the headline news was the modest proposed spending increases. Pandemic-fueled federal revenue is mostly gone or committed and the surplus in State revenues due to consumer spending after COVID has moderated.
The overall budget proposal for the 2024-25 fiscal year is $80.7 billion gross, a bit smaller than the $81.1 billion allocated so far for the 2023-24 fiscal year. General Fund spending would fall from $15.1 billion in the current year to $14.3 billion under the Governor’s budget.
Notable — The unfunded liability for school employee retiree health care is set to be paid off this fiscal year, earlier than expected. That frees up $670 million for other priorities and the Governor proposes to use it for the K-12 School Aid budget. Similarly, paying off the unfunded liability for State employee retiree health care is ahead of schedule and could be used to partially pay for upgrading our current $300 cap on our Defined Benefit COLA to its rightful 3 percent.
Match funding for State employee dependent care services was in the recommended Department of Technology, Management, and Budget proposal. A total of $31.5 million from the General Fund is recommended, which would allow for matching funds of up to $2,500 available for State employees to use through a flexible spending account for dependent care services.
For the Office of Retirement Services, $1.6 million in State restricted funds were recommended to improve customer service.
OTHER UPDATES
Redistricting — The Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission (MICRC) voted 8-5 to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court the adverse decision of a December 21 federal court panel finding that the Commission violated the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution when it used race of the voting age population as one factor while attempting to comply with the federal Voting Rights Act (VRA) in seven Detroit-area House Districts and six Senate Districts. Meanwhile, the MICRC has created and advanced nine maps for public comment until February 23 after which the MICRC will send proposed new House maps to the federal court panel for review. These are available to view on the Commission’s website at www.michigan.gov/micrc. Maps in the running that are VRA-compliant are named Willow, Motown Sound, and Riverwalk plans.
Special Primary — Two special primaries to fill two vacant House seats in the 13th and 25th districts were held January 30. In the 13th House District, Mai Xiong (D-Warren) took 88 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary to replace former Rep. Lori Stone, who left the Legislature to become mayor of Warren. In the 25th House District, Peter Herzberg (D-Westland) received 35 percent of the Democratic primary vote to replace former Rep. Kevin Coleman, who was elected mayor of Westland. Both will now advance to the special general election to be held on April 16. Both districts are solidly Democratic with both Xiong and Herzberg expected to win easily. Until these seats are filled, the House Democratic majority is moving cautiously on any controversial bills.
Legislation — Michigan SERA put in a card of support at the first hearing in the Senate Oversight Committee on new bi-partisan bills to subject the Governor’s Office and the Legislature to public records requests with certain restrictions. The bills are Senate Bill (SB) 669 and SB 670 available at www.legislature.mi.gov. Privacy for constituents in their communications with elected officials has been a sticking point over the decade that these bills have been considered.
Editor’s note: Mary Pollock is the Lansing SERA Chapter and SERA Coordinating Council’s Legislative Representative. She may be contacted at michigansera@comcast.net.
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