State House approves keeping funding for higher education stagnant

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The Michigan state House of Representatives voted 55-51 Tuesday to keep higher education funding stagnant.

“I did not vote to support the bill, right now, because the increase is from general funding dollars that are not designated,” said State Rep. Bill Caul, R-Mount Pleasant.

Caul said he is in favor of increasing funds to education but is unwilling to agree to increase spending when a deficit already exists in the state budget.

The Higher Education budget was modified from a previous Senate budget that proposed to cut funding by 3.1 percent.

The original Senate budget would have cut almost $48 million from statewide public universities.

The only way to free up funds to compensate for the tightened budget would be to reduce spending in another area first, he said.

“Unless you do that you can’t just print the money to say we’re going to give it to higher education,” Caul said.

The state House Appropriations Committee voted May 26 in favor of keeping the funding stagnant.

He said he believes the budget will most likely not be adopted by the Michigan state Senate when it receives the budget within the next week or so, and will likely sent to conference committee along with several other state budgets.

“I expect the bill will go to conference committee, and at that time I expect it will be decided where the additional dollars will come from,” he said.

State Rep. Joan Bauer, D-Lansing, voted in favor of the new budget revisions.

“(Education cuts are) not the way to build a stronger Michigan,” Bauer said in a press release. “Investing in higher education will help create the world-class workforce we need to bring new businesses and new jobs here to Michigan and keep bright, well-educated young people in our state.”