June 27, 2025 | This Week in Government: Under the Wire: Budget Talks, on Eve of Summer Recess, Get Serious

A months-long stare down between the Republican-led House and Democratic-led Senate on some of the budget finally showed signs of easing Thursday.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, House Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Township), and Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks (D-Grand Rapids), after a day of inaction, met at 7 p.m. in Whitmer’s ceremonial Capitol office.

By the time they concluded, there was new life to completing at least the K-12 budget by the July 1 statutory deadline. Hall was ebullient about the prospects of completing the K-12 school aid budget and perhaps a road funding deal. Budget Director Jen Flood voiced optimism. Brinks said there was a long way to go, but conversations would continue Friday and through the weekend. The Senate added session days to its calendar for July 1 and July 2. The House already had July 1 on its calendar.

The rest of the budget – departments, community colleges, higher education, revenue sharing – will have to wait beyond the July 1 deadline.

The only real concrete action of the day came when the House discharged the Senate version of the K-12 budget (SB 166 ) from the House Appropriations Committee  and moved it to the House floor. The House and Senate both adjourned just after 8 p.m.

Flood told reporters she’s optimistic about getting action on Tuesday, saying there were great conversations Thursday night.

What remained unclear was the willingness of Brinks and her Senate Democratic Caucus to complete a road funding package without some understanding of what the full budget looks like. Whitmer and Hall prefer to get a road funding package done now and build the rest of the budget around it.

Brinks told Gongwer News Service in an interview at her Capitol office after she, Hall and Whitmer met there is “certainly a long ways to go” since they are only working with a partial House budget.

“We did have what I would call a positive meeting in terms of trying to make progress, and we’ll continue having our appropriations folks meet throughout the weekend and see if we can make significant progress,” Brinks said. “I think we’ll have the beginning of some good conversations this weekend, and there will be more pieces that need to be in place for us to fully complete the whole budget, but we’re going to get started. Some of those pieces will come into play and into place as we get through some of those initial conversations.”

Brinks said she has always wanted a conversation on road funding to move in conjunction with the budget conversations.

“Naturally, some pieces will get done sooner than others, but any deal that we come to will have to be contemplated in the context of the whole. That’s the Senate’s view,” Brinks said.

The majority leader repeated oft-used comments she has recently made that she wants to make sure the budget is done right.

“It’s more important to get it right than it is to do it fast, because there’s a deadline that some folks didn’t do their homework for early enough,” Brinks said. “We will work diligently, but we will keep our priorities straight, and we’re not going to make a bad deal for kids in order to complete something fast.”

Brinks said she has worked well with the governor and her staff during the process and has kept open regular lines of communication. She added that it is an adjustment and challenge to work under divided government.

She also was not concerned about any attendance issues by members next week ahead of any possible votes.

“We’ll see what’s ready for a vote, but at this point, our members have been very good about attendance when we need them to be here to do the business of the state, so I don’t anticipate that,” Brinks said.

Hall told reporters after the meeting with Brinks and Whitmer that House Republicans were committed to working through the weekend to get something done on the K-12 budget and a roads plan by July 1.

“I’m still hopeful after our meeting with Gov. Whitmer and Leader Brinks that is still on the table,” he said. “It’s going to be a challenge, but I’m hopeful that’s still on the table.”

Hall said that if the Legislature can come to an agreement on roads and K-12, the rest of the budget will be easier.

“It’s really going to unlock the rest,” he said.

Deadlines are a powerful motivator for this Legislature, Hall said.

“There were a few days out of the paid sick leave and tip credit bills where it seemed like a long shot, we were going to get it done, and then in those last 48 hours we really came together and were able to make it happen,” he said. “I think after our meeting today, we’re on a roadmap that will put us in a position to get it done.”

Hall said that that he expected both the Senate and the House to be in to vote on Tuesday.

“I’m optimistic we’ll at least be able to announce something by July 1,” he said. “We may not be able to vote on it by then, because there’s a lot of mechanics and bills and things, but I’m really optimistic we’ll be able to do that, especially with Gov. Whitmer coming in and helping us.”

Hall said it was a victory for the House that the Senate scheduled session for next week.

“If we keep that deadline I think we’re going to get this done and make progress,” he said. “K-12 and roads would be a really good outcome, and is an aggressive outcome, but I’m optimistic it’s possible.”

Hall said that House Republicans have maintained that it’s possible to fund a roads plan without increasing revenue, but that others have said they want to see a revenue increase to support roads funding.

“As you’re working through that, you have to take all perspectives into account,” he said, hinting that a compromise on increasing revenue for roads might be possible.

Hall said he wasn’t sure whether there would be a conference committee.

“We haven’t gotten to that place in the conversation yet,” he said. “I’d say all options are on the table.”

Following session on Thursday, Rep. Alabas Farhat (D-Dearborn), minority vice chair on the House Appropriations Committee, was seen going into Hall’s office for a meeting.

“We’re hoping we can come to some kind of common-sense agreement on what a budget should look like,” Farhat told reporters before the House session adjourned on Thursday. “This is a process that usually takes one or two months to negotiate that we’re trying to see condensed into four or five days. So, we’ve got to make sure we get it right. And it’s OK if that brings us close to the deadline, but we have to get it done before July 1.”

Farhat said that the School Aid Fund budget that the House voted on, which uses about $1 billion in one-time funding to pay for the higher education budget, is “structurally unsound.”

“We have to unwind that in order to properly fund both,” he said.

Farhat said there was an appetite to get the K-12 budget and roads done by Tuesday.

“We just have to break the logjam at this point,” he said. “We shouldn’t be in this spot right now where we’re five days from the statutory deadline contemplating whether or not we’ll have a budget.”

Farhat said he believed it was possible to pass a roads plan without passing the rest of the General Fund budget because he believes that a sustainable roads plan will require an increase in revenue.

“We have to look at ways where we can insulate our budget and our General Fund so we can protect patient and Medicaid, we can protect families and we can also fully fund roads,” he said. “Roads is a huge issue … If we’re talking about having all the tools on the table, whether that’s revenue, whether that’s modest cuts, and whether that’s agreeing on realistic targets.”

Farhat said the Senate and the House may not need to have a conference committee to pass the education budget.

“The whole point of conference is to get the leaders all into one room to negotiate a budget. You could argue what they’re doing now is a form of that,” he said. “We should not let process and procedure get in the way of making sure that we get this done by July 1.”

School groups watched with a mixture of frustration, hope and confusion Thursday.

Robert McCann, executive director of the K-12 Alliance of Michigan, said of the situation, “Educators, students, and parents are watching this continued inaction closely and will hold Lansing politicians accountable if they continue to put party politics and other priorities over our classrooms and kids.”

U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin on Thursday outlined a “war plan” to realign the economy so it works for everyone and protects the existence of the middle class.

Slotkin (D-Holly) said it was the first of three speeches she’ll give on issues facing the country, the other two focused on security and democracy, respectively.

The speech in Washington, D.C., before Center for American Progress Action Fund, a progressive think tank, continues Slotkin’s national profile since she was elected last year. Although Slotkin has been criticized by some Democrats who see her as too centrist, she was a bright spot in Michigan as she kept the open U.S. Senate seat in Democratic hands despite a good Republican year.

She was also chosen to give the response to President Donald Trump’s speech to Congress earlier this year.

On Thursday, she said the share of American families in the middle class has fallen by 20% in the last 50 years and the power held by the middle class has been cut in half.

“This core issue unites all of us, moderates, progressives, and everything in between, and that unity is critical if we ever hope to succeed in a plan,” she said. “Things aren’t off because Americans have stopped working hard. It’s because government hasn’t lived up to its side of the great American deal, that deal which we all automatically signed up to is this: government has the responsibility to set the conditions for success, and the American people have the responsibility to work hard to achieve it. That deal is failing because politicians from both parties strayed from ruthlessly expanding the middle class.”

Slotkin called for a focus on jobs for the middle class and an education system that will prepare children for those jobs.

“We need to get government back to the basics of what it was designed to do. And to me, those fundamentals are the following: jobs that pay enough to save every month, schools that prepare kids for those jobs, a home you can call your own safety and security from fear, energy to power our lives and an environment to pass on to our kids, and health care you can actually afford,” she said. “This economic war plan aims not just to fix these systems or nibble around at the margins, but to rebuild them.”

Slotkin said when individuals can’t support their children and their families, they feel shame. She said the “existential threat” is fueled by anger and mistrust among Americans, fueled by the lack of ability to get ahead.

“Because in a multi racial, multiethnic democracy like ours, when people don’t feel like they can get ahead, when the system is rigged against them, they start blaming people who don’t look like them, or who sound different, or who pray different,” she said. “It’s how we begin to tear each other apart from the inside.”

Slotkin touched on an immigration system she said is broken energy and a health care system that is unaffordable and opaque.

On education, Slotkin said class sizes need to be smaller, cell phones should be banned for K-12 students and higher education needs to be more affordable.

She also said housing should be declared a national emergency to help fuel the building of millions of new homes.

“Today, the average American doesn’t buy their first home until they’re 40, and if they’re lucky, that is not a good story,” she said. “But there’s something we can do. We need to declare a housing emergency to spur the building of about 4 million homes to catch up with need. If our political system was healthier, we would be obsessively talking about this issue every day. But we’re not.”

Slotkin, saying the middle class doesn’t have a lobbyist to advocate for its interests, called on officials to “own up to the influence money has had in politics and gut it.”

“None of this is radical. This is getting back to basics. And as we know from sports, if you can’t get the basics right, no one cares about your trick plays,” she said. “So that’s my vision for getting back to basics, the economic war plan for America. Frankly, it’s what most Americans want their government to be focused on, and it’s how government can hold up their end of the great economic bargain.”

Michigan’s gas tax is due to be scrapped, the County Road Association said Wednesday, and should be replaced with a road usage charge model – but before that can happen, the Legislature needs to make a move on road funding in the short term.

Road usage charges, or RUCs, are one answer to the declining sales of gas caused by drivers purchasing more fuel-efficient vehicles and electric or hybrid cars. They would replace gas taxes by imposing a nominal fee that could be based on miles traveled. County Road Association Chief Executive Officer Denise Donohue said as long as Michiganders keep driving fuel-efficient cars and pinching pennies at the pump, the gas tax isn’t the most effective way to support the Michigan Transportation Fund.

“When 40% of your number one funding source is coming from gas tax and we’re selling fewer and fewer gallons of gas, this is why we are at crossroads in Michigan, needing to look at a different business model for the way that we fund roads,” Donohue said at a Wednesday press conference.

Nate Bryer, an expert in RUC for the global engineering and professional services firm WSP, said usage charges simply take the existing model of per-mile fees – currently varying between types of vehicles and drivers – and applying a consistent per-mile fee that would apply to all drivers, including EV owners, regardless of their vehicle’s gas mileage.

Four states – Oregon, Utah, Virginia, and Hawaii – have enacted operational RUC programs as of 2025. Fourteen more states have pilot programs, including California, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota. Michigan has conducted research on RUC but has yet to approve and launch a pilot program.

Bryer said so far, pilot programs around the country have shown RUC is a viable concept with readily available options for technology to administer the programs. Generally, states with the strongest programs are ones with legislative backing, he said, and increasing public participation and interstate policies for drivers who cross state lines regularly will be key to continuing success.

Some of the perception issues road usage charges face are related to a lack of understanding about how transportation is funded or the idea that the charges are unfair to rural drivers, drivers of less fuel-efficient vehicles, or in-state drivers.

Getting an RUC program off the ground in Michigan would take years, Bryer and Donohue said, but the process can begin in the upcoming fiscal year if funding for a pilot program, as proposed in the Senate and executive recommendations for the 2025-26 budget, is approved.

CRA Legislative Director Ed Noyola said there would typically be a considerable study period before beginning a state pilot program, but with existing research and expertise and considering the position of Michigan’s road funding system – running billions of dollars under what advocates say is necessary – the state should prioritize a pilot program sooner rather than later.

“I don’t think studies are necessarily out the window, but I think it’s time to really start looking at a pilot, and with experts like this, we can actually get out in front,” Noyola said. “That’s going to be my first choice.”

However, a convincing lawmakers on a RUC pilot program and the ultimate goal of a comprehensive statewide model have to take a backseat to getting a road funding plan passed before the current system becomes obsolete.

“That’s task number two,” Noyola said. “Task number one is to generate enough revenue right now for what we’re doing and how we’re distributing the transportation funding. That means the $3 billion that that the Legislature and the governor’s office have proposed. We support that concept, (but) an extra $3 billion, it’s not an easy task. We respect and we hope that the House and the Senate can come together in whatever way, shape or form and whatever method of collecting that revenue and the governor can sign a piece of legislation to take care of that problem.”

Former Michigan Governors John Engler and Jim Blanchard weighed in on new polling that shows growing public confidence in election security, speaking Thursday at a Democracy Defense Project forum in Grand Rapids.

The June poll, conducted by longtime pollster Richard Czuba, found more voters now say they are “very confident” in local election fairness and security compared to last October (88%, up from 78%). The biggest gains came from President Donald Trump voters, with Czuba attributing the overall boost in confidence to his 2024 win. National election confidence stayed high, at 76%.

“As with any election, people will have strong feelings about the outcome and the winners,” Blanchard said. “One thing our poll clearly shows is that despite those feelings, Michigan voters are confident in our election system, especially the work of our local and county level officials and the many hardworking volunteers who provide support at precincts in communities across Michigan.”

Despite the gains, 22% of respondents still said “major changes” were needed in the election system. When asked what changes they’d support, 21% called for a voter ID requirement, while smaller shares wanted to eliminate absentee voting (9%) or require proof of citizenship (8%).

Organizers of the poll said Michigan voters are already required to show ID to vote. Although voters are asked for ID, they can sign an affidavit asserting their identity and are able to cast a ballot without photo ID. Current proposals that would require proof of citizenship would also require photo ID before a ballot could be tabulated.

Engler, Blanchard, former Lt. Gov. John Cherry, and the event’s other panelists are board members of the Democracy Defense Project, a bipartisan national organization that aims to improve the public’s trust and integrity of U.S. elections.

The poll found strong initial support – 66% to 28% – for the proof of citizenship requirement making its way through Congress. But support dropped to a near-even split (48% to 47%) when respondents were told the requirement could force many married women to obtain new birth certificates to match state records.

Engler said he was excited to see the increase in trust and supported the panel’s proposal to expand access to Michigan Enhanced Driver’s Licenses, which verify citizenship. He also joined Cherry in calling for greater media accountability to counter election misinformation.

According to the Department of State, multiple safeguards exist to prevent fraud, including ID requirements and built-in protections against double voting. After the 2024 election, state officials identified only 15 credible cases of noncitizen voting out of more than 5.7 million ballots – just 0.00028%– all of which were investigated.

Kent County Clerk Lisa Posthumus Lyons praised the poll’s results at the event and said that transparency in elections is key to improving voter confidence.

“There are so many checks and balances on the front end on Election Day,” Posthumus Lyons said. “Once the public knows about them, they can have much more faith in the process.”

Former U.S. Rep. Mike Bishop, also a panelist, said he joined the Democracy Defense Project to “promote civil discussions” around elections. Blanchard and Engler echoed the call for civic engagement.

“It’s become a lot harder to get good people to go into government,” Engler said. “We need people to have the confidence to go in, and we certainly need them to believe the government can make a difference.”

Additionally, the poll showed a strong disapproval of the ranked-choice voting proposal at a 26% to 65% margin. The Board of State Canvassers  will decide on Friday whether organizers can start gathering signatures for a petition on the amendment (See Gongwer Michigan Report, June 20, 2025).

Not seasonally adjusted unemployment rates rose in most of Michigan during the month of May, new data from the Department of Technology, Management and Budget shows.

14 of the state’s 18 labor market areas saw a rise in those rates during May, DTMB’s data released Thursday said.

The state’s regional unemployment rates ranged from 4.6 to 7.4% over the month, with the largest rate increase recorded in the Detroit metropolitan statistical area. Unemployment rates decreased seasonally over the month in northern lower Michigan, both on the east and west sides of the state, and in the Upper Peninsula, which can be attributed in part to the return of the summer seasonal workforce.

“Michigan regional labor markets were largely impacted by seasonal workforce increases over the month,” Michigan Center for Data and Analytics labor market information Director Wayne Rourke said in a statement. “Payroll employment rose in most Michigan metro areas during May.”

All 18 labor market areas saw unemployment rate gains from May 2024, with a median rate increase of 1.2 percentage points. The Bay City, Flint and Saginaw metro areas exhibited the largest rate increase of 1.6 percentage points over the year.

Total employment was up over the month, but down over the year since last May. Total employment rose in May in 13 labor markets but decreased in 16 markets since last year. The two markets that didn’t see a fall in total employment from May 2024 were the Lansing and Northeast Lower Michigan areas.

Regional labor force levels rose in all 18 regions in May, with a median increase of 0.9%. The Northeast Lower Michigan region exhibited the largest workforce increase, an addition of 2.8%. Over the year, regional labor force levels increased in 13 regions.

According to a monthly survey of employers, not seasonally adjusted payroll jobs advanced by 62,000, 1.4%, during May. The industries with the largest growth were in the leisure and hospitality sector. Total non-farm employment increased by 45,000, or 1.0%, over the year.