- Setting the stage for a new budget round is an 83.5 billion dollar budget, exactly one billion dollars higher than last year's.
- State Budget Director Jennifer Flood presented Governor Gretchen Whitmer's budget and noted a bigger focus on the little ones.
- Video shows the impact the new budget will have on neighbors.
Setting the stage for a new budget round is an 83.5 billion dollar budget, exactly one billion dollars higher than last year's.
"This budget will lower costs, create jobs, improve student outcomes, and support our seniors," State Budget Director Jennifer Flood said.
State Budget Director Jennifer Flood presented Governor Gretchen Whitmer's budget and noted a bigger focus on the little ones.
"Every Michigan family deserves to raise their kids in communities with world-class schools," Flood said.
This budget would increase the amount schools spend on education to 10,000 thousand dollars a student, provide 23 million dollars to improve reading scores and 258 million dollars to mental health and school safety grants.
But is that the right approach?
For that answer, I went outside the Capitol.
"It's not a cookie cutter. Not everyone learns the same, not everyone takes things in the same," Keisha Howe said.
Charlotte parent Keisha Howe's idea of helping the state is looking at the kids themselves.
"Providing a curriculum based on the child's interest and maybe making it more hands-on," Howe said.
Also looking at another approach, GOP lawmakers are asking if these are the right investments to make, noting that the state budgets have increased by 36 billion in 15 years.
"I think it's time we take a look at budgets and see what's in there, what works, what doesn't work, and let's work together to figure that out because it's costing taxpayers a lot of money to live in this state," State Senator Jon Bumstead said.
But Flood says these recommendations are necessary for the people of Michigan.
"This budget is focused on making a difference in real people's lives," Flood said.
As the budget comes together, Governor Whitmer has to work with a Republican majority in the state house to have a budget finalized by July 1.
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