LANSING – The Michigan House Appropriations Committee was slated to make decisions on all of its education-related budgets but instead will leave that until next week as the chair said the bills were not ready Wednesday.
There was some talk that there are changes being made to the School Aid budget (HB 4359) that were not ready for legislative action and the same was true for minor boilerplate language in the higher education budgets HB 4350 and HB 4351.
But while keeping the budgets of the University of Michigan, Michigan State University and Wayne State University separate from the other 12 public institutions has been controversial, the subcommittee Chair Rep. Pam Byrnes (D-Chelsea) said there are enough votes to get that structure onto the floor and that was not why the bills were being held up.
When HB 4351, which provides funding for those three universities, was voted on in subcommittee, all of the Republican members dissented and Rep. Alma Wheeler Smith (D-Ypsilanti) joined them. HB 4350, which funds the remaining schools, received all Democratic support in subcommittee but Republicans abstained from voting.
The committee also had the community colleges budget (HB 4360) and the Department of Education (HB 4346) on its agenda.
Rep. Michael Sak (D-Grand Rapids), chair of the community colleges subcommittee, said that budget is ready to go with no changes.
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