The Michigan House of Representatives passed its higher education budget proposal Thursday evening after a long day at the Michigan State Capitol.
The Republican-led plan would cut funding to Michigan’s two largest universities, the University of Michigan and Michigan State University. U of M would lose about 65% of its state money. MSU would lose about 18%.
Money taken from U of M and MSU would be spread across the state’s other 13 public universities, all of which would see their funding go up by around a quarter.
House Appropriations Committee Chair Ann Bollin (R-Brighton) said those smaller schools rely on state funding significantly more than U of M and MSU.
“We have great universities in the state of Michigan. Each one of them offers something a little different to our potential student. And it rewards those that are responding more to what the interests are of the state versus a lot of interests from people outside of the state, including students,” Bollin said.
When asked how she expected the proposed funding cuts to affect the schools, Bollin said, “minimally.”
Next, House Republicans will have to negotiate with Democrats in the state Senate and governor’s office. Democrats are criticizing several parts of the legislation.
One area of concern is a new limit for school spending on non-education, maintenance, or safety-related staff. A university that exceeds spending 10% in its overall budget risks having more funding taken away.
“That’s your financial aid officers, that’s your admissions counselors, that’s your academic counselors. If you’re a research institution, that’s postdocs. If you are University of Michigan and have a large hospital system, those are your doctors. There is no way that those schools would be able to meet that,” Representative Samantha Steckloff (D-Farmington Hills) told reporters Thursday before the final version of the House higher education budget proposal was released.
Bollin said the goal was to rein in higher education costs altogether.
“A good proportion of the costs are administrative or in human capital. It's not necessarily in buildings and things like that,” Bollin said. “The idea is that we're trying to get more dollars that are going to educate the students.”
But the legislation also includes provisions that would ban schools spending any money on inclusion initiatives, stop common areas from being “restricted by sex or race,” and prevent trans-women from playing on women’s sports teams.
Thursday, Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Sarah Anthony (D-Lansing) questioned whether the plans are a serious starting point for negotiations.
“Unfortunately, I cannot tell what is theater and what is rooted in reality in the proposals that we've seen. So obviously trimming back where there's fat is always a part of the exercises that we do in our budget processes,” Anthony told reporters.
Anthony said she’s still holding out hope that lawmakers can meet a July 1 statutory deadline for passing a new state budget. To do so, Anthony told reporters she’s opposed to passing an education budget first, then coming back to the table later to focus on an omnibus package to fund the rest of state government for the upcoming fiscal year.
On Friday, Bollin didn’t completely ice the idea of passing a full budget by July. She said she’s willing to work every day for the rest of the month to get something done for schools at the very least.
She dismissed criticism from Democrats as part of politics.
“Both sides do this. We have our talking points. Now we’ve got the guts on paper, and it’s time to sit down and have the real conversations,” Bollin said.
The state’s current budget expires at the end of August.
