LANSING — Michigan House Republicans moved last week to take back more than $600 million in previously approved state funding without input from the state Senate or the governor.
The funds were previously passed by the Legislature and approved by Gov. Whitmer — but projects that span from one year into another must be re-approved by the House or Senate budget committees.
The Republican-controlled House Appropriations Committee opted to deny close to $645 million in those requests, impacting some ongoing services and developments.
“That’ll give us all time to evaluate these projects, to put the good ones back in and cut the bad ones,” said House Speaker Matt Hall, (R) District 42, Richland Twp.
RxKids, the cash assistance program that has expanded to multiple areas of Michigan, had $18 million revoked by the committee.
“Nobody would have expected that money that we already had allocated, already approved, already signed, once again by the governor, would be taken away,” said Dr. Mona Hanna, director of the RxKids program.
Hanna says she was blindsided by the news. She was also confused because in the most recent state budget, the group received a quarter billion dollars to expand their operations.
Hanna says that RxKids will continue through the cut, but that some of those expansion plans may be impacted.
”This is a setback, and we are going to work around the clock to make sure that we get back this money that was already approved for this program — but we are moving ahead,” she said.
Democratic lawmakers, who were excluded from the process, say that some of the cuts strike them as cruel, including taking back support for organizations that provide wigs for children with cancer and therapy services for survivors of child sexual abuse.
“It’s very, very, very alarming,” said Rep. Betsy Coffia, (D) District 103, Traverse City. “I think people are having a hard enough time. We don’t need to be clawing back funding that is going to make such a difference in people’s lives.”
Hall cast the move as cutting down on ‘waste, fraud and abuse,’ and highlighted millions in cuts to business incentive programs.
But he also acknowledged that some worthwhile projects were included in the cuts.
“Not everything that the appropriations committee cut was waste, fraud and abuse,” he said last week. “There are some valid things that were cut, but I’ll explain to you that the way this works — those were tied to waste, fraud and abuse.”
Early next year, Hall says the Legislature will pass a smaller spending bill known as a budget supplemental. That package could total millions or billions of dollars and may include some of the items that were cut.