LANSING – Accepting that the hard budgetary medicine was the best course to take, the two legislative Appropriations Committees approved an executive order that will cut the 2008-09 budget by about $350 million. State officials said they hoped these cuts would be the last needed for the current fiscal year, but they could not offer a guarantee that cutting for 2008-09 is done.

By itself, the executive order cannot eliminate the estimated current year revenue shortfall of as much as $1.5 billion. Doing that will require the use of federal stimulus funds, Budget Director Bob Emerson told the House and Senate Appropriations Committees.

The Senate Appropriations Committee approved EO 2009-22 on a 15-2 vote. The House Appropriations Committee voted 27-4 to approve the EO.

With the executive order adopted, the state will have to shut down most of its functions for a period of six days during the remainder of the fiscal year. That shutdown will be required because virtually all workers will take six days of furloughs and the state wants to maximize the savings the furloughs offer by closing down state offices. When those days will be held has not yet been determined.

The order, in addition, calls for the layoff of some 300 state workers, including 100 State Police troopers. Most those troopers being laid off will be those who recently completed trooper training. The trooper layoffs raised some of the greatest concern among lawmakers, and as committee members came into the House Appropriations Room they were greeted by dozens of recently graduated troopers who stood in a silent protest.

“There is not much good news in the state of Michigan these days. This executive order reflects that,” Emerson said as he presented EO 2009-22. He was not proud to offer the cuts, he said, but the cuts were made necessary by the unprecedented severity of the economic crisis.

The severity of that crisis was highlighted by Treasurer Bob Kleine, who said that revenues fell by 11 percent, when adjusted for inflation, in 1981, during the last cataclysmic economic recession the state endured. In 2009, revenues, adjusted for inflation, have fallen by 23.5 percent, he said.

The EO calls for total reductions of $349.3 million, but some of those reductions are double-counted through transfers.

The House Fiscal Agency noted the net general fund savings total $294.5 million, but that further legislative action will be required to transfer restricted funding to the state’s main checkbook.

The Senate Fiscal Agency noted the general fund savings, after a negative supplemental is taken out, would total just over $200 million.

The remaining $127.4 million will come in cuts from federal and restricted funds.

The furlough reductions called for in the order, which will affect most state workers whose employment is not considered vital to state safety and health, though officials were uncertain how many actual workers that would be, should equate to general fund savings of about $21.7 million, according to the Senate Fiscal Agency.

The EO does not directly cut the budgets for the Legislature and the Judiciary (as co-equal branches of government, the Executive could not specifically cut those budgets), though both branches will make budgetary cuts. Also exempted from the cuts are higher education and community colleges, which Emerson said would threaten the availability of federal stimulus funds.

The Department of Human Services will take the largest cut, $120.9 million total with $97.5 million in general funds. And to criticisms from some Republican lawmakers that the EO does not enact changes to the structure of state government, Emerson said that the administration is cutting and eliminating as many as 30 state programs that provide aid to low-income residents.

“Our intent is not to restore these,” Emerson said of the programs. That demonstrates the state’s determination to make structural changes to the state’s budget, he said.

But some lawmakers said while they felt they had to endorse the cuts, they intended to fight continuing those cuts as part of the 2009-10 budget.

Presuming no more budget cuts are required, with stimulus funds the state should end the 2008-09 fiscal year with about $160 million surplus. Emerson said while some may argue ending the year with a surplus means the state shouldn’t be cutting as much as it is in the EO, with the ongoing crisis in the auto industry he isn’t sure the surplus will in fact be enough at the end of the fiscal year.

But whether the state would need to cut the budget further was a top concern of committee members. The revenue estimating conference is scheduled for Friday, May 15, and members worried that at that time the state may find itself compelled to make more cuts.

Emerson and Kleine both said they did not think the state would have to make further cuts, but they stressed they could make no guarantee of that. Officials were estimating revenues very conservatively, though Kleine acknowledged that the state’s estimates do not presume that Chrysler and General Motors liquidate.

What forced the state to lower its estimates on revenues for 2008-09 was a disastrous April revenue picture, Mr. Kleine said, with sharp drops in income tax and Michigan Business Tax collections. April is a unique month, because 65 percent of all state revenues for the year have been collected by that time, so it should not face a monthly revenue decline as bad for the rest of the year, he said.

THE ORDER’S SPECIFICS: Cutting Michigan’s state troopers is possibly the most visible of the cuts ordered, though Mr. Emerson said the Michigan State Police is not taking proportionately as large a cut as other departments.

In fact, Emerson told reporters State Police initially called for more layoffs, and state officials asked them to recalculate total cuts.

The department will take a total cut of $15.2 million, all of it in general funds.

The cut for troopers alone will amount nearly $4.8 million. State Police Director Peter Munoz issued a statement saying that all the trooper layoffs will occur no later than July 1 and under contractual rules those troopers with the lowest seniority will be affected. No post closures are anticipated because of the cuts, he said, though the layoffs may affect shifts at some posts.

The order also calls for savings of $3.8 million in laboratory operations though that cut should be supplemented with a transfer from the State Services Fee Fund.

Another $2.2 million will come in fleet leasing. While most of that will accrue from savings in fuel costs, Munoz said the state will institute mileage restrictions on vehicles that could affect some patrol activities.

The state did apply last month with the federal Department of Justice for a COPS grant to help finance as many as 200 state troopers. However, a spokesperson for the department said more departments nationwide have applied for the grants than there is funding, and the state might not hear about its application until September 30, so even if the state gets the grants it would likely not affect the current fiscal year.

Besides the cuts to the State Police, the other cuts that received the greatest attention were to revenue sharing and the Department of Community Health.

The state is cutting $41.5 million in revenue sharing. Under the cut, each locality will receive essentially the same revenue sharing payments they received in the 2007-08 fiscal year.

Emerson said the cut in revenue sharing could actually have a greater overall effect on public safety than the cuts to the State Police because of the effect it would have local police and fire services.

After Human Services, DCH will see the largest overall cut at $57.7 million, $53.1 million in general funds. Including the imposition of furlough da