Republican state House Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Township) announced Wednesday that a new legislative will review spending and regulations, stoking concerns that this will push adopting a new budget past the deadline.
Hall said he is looking to put the Legislature into a stronger position to manage the budget process and spending by state departments.
“We’re reasserting the separation of powers in Michigan, the balance of power, and establishing the legislative branch as a more dominant branch in Michigan’s government,” he said. “It’s been steamrolled by many Michigan governors for too long.”
A Republican aide said details on the new committee and its purview will be rolled out next week.
Hall made the announcement at the Detroit Regional Chamber’s business conference on Mackinac Island, where attendees say they are concerned about the Legislature blowing past July 1, which is when schools, local governments and public colleges and universities start their fiscal years.
But Hall said he considers that deadline secondary to reining in spending and regulatory overreach.
“I don’t think there’s anything more we could do for the people of Michigan than rein in these crazy regulations coming out of the departments, which we’re going to do,” he said. Hall also said targeted budget cuts would allow for a big increase in K-through-12 school funding, even if it is at the expense of missing that statutory deadline.
But Representative Carrie Rheingans (D-Ann Arbor) said this is a late-in-the-game plan that will almost certainly push the Legislature past the July 1 deadline to have the budget finalized.
“I am very concerned about an on-time budget,” she said. “Our schools and our local governments rely on us doing our biggest job, which is passing an on-time budget so that they know how much money they’re going to have for their budgets during their fiscals and thejr fiscals begin on July 1.”
The state’s fiscal year does not begin until October, but state law says the Legislature is supposed to finish the budget by July 1. There is no penalty, however, for missing that target.
