The Michigan Senate approved a billion-dollar spending plan today to supplement the current Fiscal Year 22 budget.
The plan uses federal money from the American Rescue Plan Act and other grants to provide various levels of COVID-19 assistance.
Republican state Senator Wayne Schmidt is on the Senate appropriations committee.
"We’ve heard from people ‘Oh, the sky is falling,’ and stuff. It isn’t. The money is getting out there but it’s being done in a very transparent way. In a way that gets it to the people who need it most. Not just for some reelection or something like that." said Schmidt.
Some of the biggest spending areas in today’s spending plan include epidemiology and lab capacity health care worker retention and school safety grants.
The vote comes a day before Governor Whitmer plans to outline her plan for next year’s budget to the Legislature.