Fate of Mich. budget uncertain

After a 20-day wait, the Michigan Senate has delivered the final 2009-10 budget bills to Gov. Jennifer Granholm, but it is unclear whether she will approve them without changes.

Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, delivered the final six budget bills Tuesday after keeping them from Granholm for weeks because she had vowed to veto parts to restore funding for the Michigan Promise Scholarship, Medicaid, revenue sharing and K-12 education.

After failing to settle Michigan’s $40 billion budget by the Oct. 1 deadline, lawmakers are working under a temporary budget that expires Oct. 31.

Bishop’s spokesman Matt Marsden said Bishop held the bills because the governor’s veto would add to the deficit.

“We asked her to sign (the bills) as they came to her desk,” Marsden said. “The governor needs to understand that what she has on her desk is a solution that doesn’t raise tax and balances the budget.”

But Granholm already has used her veto power on the K-12 education budget. During a press conference Tuesday, she said Bishop needs to compromise to restore funding to programs such as the Michigan Promise Scholarship.

“I would ask him to commit to the promise we made to students,” she said.

While working to erase Michigan’s $2.8 billion deficit, the Legislature slashed the Michigan Promise Scholarship and about $60 million in financial aid funding for higher education.

Along with higher education, budget bills for human services, community health, state police and energy, labor and economic growth are unresolved. Granholm said she only will veto specific items on them — not entire bills — to restore funding.

“I hope that by her vetoing things, (Bishop) will show some reason and understand how important it is to the citizens of Michigan that we provide some basic services,” said state Sen. Deb Cherry, D-Burton.

But Marsden said Granholm’s veto power wouldn’t restore funding.

“We will not be going back to fund any of those budgets,” Marsden said. “Those funds will be moved into consideration for savings into next year’s … deficit.”

With funding gone, 96,000 college students who rely on the Michigan Promise Scholarship would be out of luck.

“We are going to just have to try to see what we have left when we get through this,” MSU Trustee Donald Nugent said.

And experts said next year the budget battle could be worse.

“(It) could be the single worst budget to be written in the state’s history,” said Craig Ruff, senior policy fellow at Public Sector Consultants, a policy research group in Lansing. “I don’t know how they will write a budget that is balanced without raising taxes.”