Michigan Report Top Stories

Volume #48, Report #216--Thursday, November 5, 2009

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Senate Activity Report   |   House Activity Report

F.Y. '10 MINUS 8: SOME CUTS TAKE BIG STEPS, OTHERS WAIT

Legislators stared down Wednesday some of the most painful spending cuts in the proposed 2009-10 budget agreement - the loss of scholarships for college students and deep reductions for K-12 public schools - and approved them.

RACE FOR 2010: BOUCHARD SAYS HE HAS RESUME TO LEAD

It was lunch with the man he wanted to run for governor that got Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard back on the track to run in 2010. Now he's the first candidate to run with a prospective lieutenant governor's running mate and hammering hard at what he sees as Lansing's failures to govern in times of economic stress.

F.Y. '10 MINUS 8: K-12 BUDGET CUTS $218 PER STUDENT

School aid payments would be cut $218 per student, but districts would be given the flexibility to meet that reduction through other means than the foundation allowance under a 2009-10 K-12 budget unanimously reported out of a conference committee Wednesday.

F.Y. '10 MINUS 8: HIGHER ED BUDGET GUTS FINANCIAL AID

Division over eliminating the $4,000 Promise Grant continued to run deep Wednesday with two of the three Democrats on the higher education conference committee - including the chair - voting against the budget.

STATE TO BUY, NOT LEASE, NEW POLICE H.Q.

Part of the solution to the Department of State Police budget was to have the department not paying any rent for much of the coming fiscal year.

SALESMANSHIP MOVES STATE POLICE BUDGET

The budget for the Department of State Police moved from conference committee Wednesday in the same form it had been unveiled on Tuesday, but it stayed that way only because of 24 hours of negotiations.

F.Y. '10 MINUS 8: WETLANDS FUNDING DISPUTE SNAGS BUDGET

A dispute Wednesday between the House and Senate on whether they agreed to provide three years of funding to keep the state's wetland regulations program alive prevented completion of the budget for the departments of Environmental Quality and Natural Resources.