Sen. Ed McBroom and Rep. Dave Prestin joined constituents for coffee at Dancing Crane Coffee House Friday morning, where many were already steaming over the Democratic-majority Legislature's $81.7 billion Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24) state budget that passed Wednesday, June 28.
Prestin voted no. McBroom voted yes.
McBroom said he voted yes for $15 million in "critical UP needs." In doing so, he managed to ensure $7.3 million in renovations to Helen Newberry Joy Hospital in Luce County.
In the final version of the budget, McBroom was also able to secure:
- $150,000 for the Chocolay Township Fire Department.
- $3 million for a Baraga County Road Commission facility.
- $3 million for restoration of the historic Vista Theatre in Negaunee.
- $870,000 for Michigan Tech. to maintain the nursing education for the former Finlandia University.
- $3 million for the Net River Dam in Covington and the Republic Dam.
- $200 million debt payment in the higher education retirement system.
- $1.2 million for the Off-Road Vehicle Trail Improvement Fund
- $2.7 million for the Snowmobile Trail Improvement Fund
"These budgets, coupled with the reduction of income taxes for this year and the funding for the paper mill modernization, along with major investments in U.P. roads and other U.P. infrastructure such as rail and propane storage are reasons to support this budget,” McBroom said.
But Prestin stood firmly against what he referred to as "wasteful spending." The 108th district representative has highlighted the following examples:
- Funding for more than 1,000 new bureaucrats
- Authorization of $500 million for future spending into the Strategic Outreach and Attraction Reserve.
- Subsidies for wind, solar, and other unnecessary energy projects, with more than $100 million for various energy programs.
- Spending $125 million on “clean” buses.
- Expansion of the school meal program
- Increase of burdensome groundwater fees on Michigan small businesses
- Undermining of key transparency requirements.
McBroom revealed some unexpected additions to the budget just prior to voting.
"Suddenly, they came out in the conference report last minute," he said, estimating the spending amount of those additions to be between $150 million and $300 million. "Within two hours, we were voting on it. That was really orchestrated by the governor, speaker of the house, and senate majority leader."
One Brimley resident wanted to know if anything could have been done to prevent voting prior to a more thorough review.
"We were going through 1,600 pages as fast as we could at my desk," McBroom said. "My staff and I were doing word searches, searching Chippewa, Luce, Delta... we searched all 15 of my counties to see if any specific appropriation was dedicated to that county."
The senator reassured that he had approximately two months to read over 90% of the budget.
Another resident further questioned his vote in favor of such massive spending. But Prestin immediately jumped to McBroom's defense.
"The senator made the changes needed to positively effect what we were ultimately going to be handed," he said. "I wouldn't say the senate made lemonade out of lemons, but they definitely took the tart out of it."
"What we negotiated for was the removal of the language used by the governor and others regarding abortion," McBroom added. "We requested all of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) language be removed. It had a lot of language guaranteeing DEI spending. As a caucus of republicans in the senate, we had requested in the process to significantly spend on paying down debt for the Michigan Public School Employees' Retirement System (MPSERS)."
He assured residents that paying on the retirement plan "forced on schools in the 90s" would greatly benefit Michigan Technological University (MTU), Lake Superior State University (LSSU), and Northern Michigan University (NMU).
The FY24 budget includes massive appropriations in health care programming, infrastructure, state police, and schools. In fact, it has allocated $21B to Michigan schools.
Former 38th District Sen. Wayne Schmidt organized the event at Dancing Crane Coffee House to help connect the district's voters to their current senator and representatives.
House Bill 4437 is an general omnibus budget bill.
Senate Bill 173 is a school aid fund omnibus budget bill that provides funding for the state’s K-12 schools, public universities, and community colleges.
