As we get closer to the midterm elections, races for the Michigan U.S. Senate and House seats prove that Michigan is stepping closer into the national spotlight. In this episode of MichMash, WDET’s Cheyna Roth and Gongwer News Service’s Zach Gorchow discuss Michigan’s power as a swing state with Pluribus News Founder and Editor Reid Wilson.

Plus, the state budget drama continues as cancellations in funding disrupts multiple work projects. Cheyna and Zach debrief on the latest in Lansing.

In this episode:

• How did $645 million in work projects get cancelled?
• What role does Michigan play in the U.S. Senate and House majorities?
• What’s ahead for the 2028 presidential race?

Cancelled work projects

State law empowers the Michigan House Appropriation Committee and the Michigan Senate Appropriation Committee to cancel some types of work projects. This is what happened that caused $645 million to be cancelled in work projects. Gorchow says that this sent shockwaves across the capital, and that nothing like this has ever happened.

The Republican majority committee says they did this to cut spending, but Democrats and even some Republicans disapprove of these actions. There might be a supplemental appropriation bill which would include negotiations and discussion to possibly restore some of this funding.

2028 presidential race

A lot of focus is on the US Senate and House seats in Michigan. But Reid also brought up how the 2028 Presidential Race might feature one of Michigan’s own.

“Just because Governor Whitmer will says she is not running for president, she’s not saying I will not run for president,” he points out.

More from MichMash

Is everyone getting charged the same in Michigan’s courts? This is the question causing members of the Michigan Judicial Council to create a proposal to take the pressure off judges to generate revenue and make the state a more balanced funding partner. The proposal also aims to make sure people are not given debts that they can’t pay.

In this episode of MichMash, host Cheyna Roth and Gongwer News Service’s Alethia Kasben discuss the ins and outs of this proposal with former judge and State Court Administrator Tom Boyd.

Why propose a change?

The council’s proposal seeks to change how the state court is funded. Boyd says it’s not just a matter of different courts charging different amounts for the same infractions, but it can also depend on the individual person.

“Unfortunately, today, that tax is often determined by how the person presents himself in court. Well, that’s not a fair — or honestly legal under the current system — way of doing things,” Boyd says.

He stresses that uniform practices are needed to stay consistent with the law.

Michiganders have lived with water insecurity for years. Detroit’s mass shutoffs in the mid-2010s put the issue in the national spotlight, but the struggle didn’t stay in Detroit. Residents in small cities and rural towns have faced rising rates, aging systems, and growing household debt, too.

This year, lawmakers are taking another run at a statewide fix.

A new bipartisan set of bills would create a state fund for low-income water assistance, cap bills for many struggling households, and set firm rules around when water can be shut off. The plan nearly passed last session in the Michigan legislature, but collapsed in the final days. Now it’s back with updated language, a broader coalition, and a place on the Michigan Senate floor.

Democratic State Senator Stephanie Chang has spent years drafting and refining statewide affordability legislation and Sylvia Orduño, a longtime organizer with the People’s Water Board Coalition, has worked on water access and human rights advocacy for more than 25 years.

They joined Robyn Vincent on The Metro to discuss why this moment matters, and what Michigan could gain or lose in the months ahead.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on demand.

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More stories from The Metro

During Thanksgiving weekend, the MichMash hosts got together to look at issues and stories we should look out for in the month of December. In this episode, WDET’s Cheyna Roth and Gongwer News Service’s Zach Gorchow and Alethia Kasben discuss topics such as data centers, the Michigan gubernatorial race, and what items on the legislature’s to-do list are likely to get accomplished.

Data centers

The Michigan Public Service Commission is planning on addressing the increasing amount of data centers in the state in a public hearing this week.

Open AI, the company behind ChatGPT, is opening a data center in Saline Township. Bridge Michigan recently reported there are nine other communities where companies have proposed building these large-scale data centers.

This surge is a result of a 2024 law that expanded the exemption from the state’s 6% sales tax purchases for the equipment inside these data centers. But despite economic opportunity, there is concern among residents. Questions about environmental impact came up when the legislature passed those bills.

The hearing is set for Dec. 3.

Michigan gubernatorial race

The team also spoke about a major shift coming up in the state gubernatorial race.

Detroit Mayor and gubernatorial candidate Mike Duggan is going to lose a huge asset in having the mayoral megaphone to command attention once Mayor-Elect Mary Sheffield takes office. That means he could be losing a lot of news coverage starting Jan. 1. On the other hand, he’ll be able to dedicate his full effort to his campaign efforts. We’ll see how that plays out.

Michigan lawmakers are working on bipartisan approaches to ensure crimes are accounted for and increase privacy for lawmakers.

WDET’s Cheyna Roth and Gongwer News Service’s Alethia Kasben talk with State Senator Stephanie Chang and State Representative Sarah Lightner. They discuss the Violent Crime Clearance Act, shielding of addresses for certain public officials, and more. 

Murder-solve rate in Michigan

According to a Michigan State Police report, the murder-solve rate is at 31.7% as of March of 2025. State Rep. Lightner said there could be more done to help law enforcement solve crimes.

She says a bill she introduced with State Senator Stephanie Chang will, “allow more for technical assistance for forensics or more people to investigate. [This bill] would help utilize those dollars better and have better access to labs.” 

Privacy for public officials

Another proposal both lawmakers were unified on was a bill that shields the addresses of certain public officials. Due to the increased climate of political violence over the past several years, both legislators want to help ensure safety for lawmakers.

State Sen. Chang said, “We are in a different time with the heightened risk of political violence. The judicial protection act was spurred by the killing of a judge’s son. Having personal identifying information puts everyone at further risk.” 

State Sen. Chang said now that the state budget is done, these bills have a better change of being addressed  

More MichMash

Michigan House Speaker Matt Hall makes his MichMash debut this week to share his take on recent events involving the Michigan legislature. In this episode, he joins hosts Cheyna Roth and Zach Gorchow to talk about funding, Governor Gretchen Whitmer, the state budget, Republican candidates for governor and more.

Bringing the H.E.A.T.

Speaker Hall says his H.E.A.T. plan (short for the Hall Ethics, Accountability and Transparency plan) aims to bring more transparency to spending in the legislature. He says that people need to know where money from the state budget is going.

“Let’s get public documents a long time in advance that tells us what is the public purpose, what is the project, so we can look into these ‘pork’ spending projects and say which ones are good and which ones are bad,” Hall said.

Republican candidates for governor

Hall also spoke about the current candidates for governor. He said that there were a lot of strong republican contenders, but he also complimented independent candidate Mike Duggan.

“Mike Duggan and I get along very well,” Hall said. “I’ve done many deals with him. The Public Safety Trust fund… We have a great relationship. But he’s more of a democrat than a republican.”

The Michigan gubernatorial elections will be held on Nov. 3, 2026.

A new judicial task force report calls for an overhaul in how Michigan’s local courts are funded.

The report says the local jurisdictions rely too much on fines and fees to fund their operations. The report says that is not only unfair, it undermines faith that courts and judges are more interested in dispensing justice than collecting money.

Court costs and challenges

State Court Administrator Tom Boyd says it’s no secret that confidence in policing and the fairness of courts is under challenge. “It isn’t that folks that come before the courts aren’t paying their fair share, it’s that they’re paying way more than their fair share. And, so, the report tries to get at a mechanism to ensure that people pay the right amount and that the people that assess that revenue aren’t motivated by profit.”

Bonsitu Kitaba-Gaviglio is the acting legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan. She says Michigan’s court problematic funding system could be vulnerable open to a constitutional challenge. “The obligation to tax, assess, to fund the operation of the government is a responsibility of the Legislature, not the judiciary, and so that’s a constitutional concern, and second, it raises serious due process concerns.”

She says people can’t always expect fair treatment when judges have a vested financial interest in guilty verdicts and imposing fines and fees.

Tom Boyd, the state court administrator, says in some jurisdictions, courts are so flush with revenue it helps fund other parts of local government. Meanwhile, in other places courts barely break even. “I challenge you to go hang around district courts where you live today and stop people and ask them what they think the government wants from them and the overwhelming answer is going to be money.”

One potential solution

One of the recommendations is to take all the fines, fees and costs collected by all the courts and put it all into one pot to be shared statewide. The state would also develop a plan to prioritize based on the needs of local court systems, including how busy they are and the types and complexity of the cases.

Monroe County Administrator Michael Bosanac was part of the task force. He says all that money from fines, fees and costs would go into a state-managed fund, and could only be spent on local courts, and not diverted for other purposes.

“We’re not saying that those functions are not important. They’re really important. We’re just simply saying that in this new model that they should not be funded from court resources and revenue. They should be funding those from some other source of money.”

There’s hope these recommendations will give the Legislature a framework to comply with a court decision.

An on-going effort

The Michigan Supreme Court ruled nearly a dozen years ago that local courts cannot arbitrarily impose court costs on defendants to fund their operations. The Legislature has voted itself multiple extensions since then and there is bipartisan interest in finalizing a solution.

”It’s a super-important issue that we, I’m hoping that the Legislature can finally get resolved,” says State Senator Stephanie Chang. She’s a Democrat who chairs the Senate Civil Rights, Judiciary and Public Safety Committee.

Chang says a resolution is overdue to resolve the conflict between the fair administration of justice and leaning on defendants to provide a major source of funding. “So how can we make sure that we have a stable funding system that funds our trial courts in a way that gets rid of that conflict?”

It is a big and complex task, but Chang says she is optimistic that even in a divided political environment, the Legislature can reach a bipartisan solution by the end of next year.

Michigan’s cannabis industry has become one of the largest in the nation. Last year alone, people here bought over $3 billion worth of legal weed, second only to California.

Now, the state wants to take that success and pave roads with it. State lawmakers just passed a new 24 percent wholesale tax in the state budget, set to begin in January. It will raise an estimated $420 million a year for transportation projects.

Supporters call it smart budgeting, “pot for potholes.” But others see a troubling shift: a young industry, still finding its footing, being asked to carry the weight of Michigan’s infrastructure.

The Michigan Cannabis Industry Association is taking the debate to court. It has filed a complaint arguing the new wholesale tax unlawfully alters a voter-initiated cannabis law under the state constitution.

Underlying inequalities

There is also a deeper tension. For decades, Black people in Michigan were nearly four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than white people.

When voters approved the legalization of recreational cannabis in 2018, it came with a promise: that the people most harmed by prohibition would share in the new prosperity.

This new tax could test that promise if higher costs push small, Black- and brown-owned businesses out of the market.

So today, The Metro explores these tensions and concerns through the perspective of people in the cannabis industry.

First, we hear from Jamie Lowell, a longtime cannabis advocate. He’ll help us step back and learn: how does Michigan’s market compare with other states?

Then we turn to Al Williams, owner of DaCut dispensaries, and president of the Detroit Cannabis Industry Association.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on demand.

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More stories from The Metro

The final medical decisions in a person’s life are among the most difficult anyone can make. They can include how to proceed with treatment for someone with a terminal illness, or to cease treatment all together. When that person is unconscious or unable to make that decision themselves, family, or next of kin, are often the ones who decide.

But, in practice, carrying out the wishes of a loved one is not as simple as it seems. 

Without having the necessary paperwork already completed, a person needs to gain legal guardianship before they can make medical decisions on their loved ones’ behalf. That process is complicated and can waste precious, fleeting moments on bureaucracy.

State Rep. Jamie Thompson (R-Brownstown) is co-sponsoring a bipartisan bill along with Angela Witwer (D-Delta Township) to close the medical decision-making gap in Michigan.

Rep. Thompson joined the Metro to discuss the details of the bill, and her personal experience which highlights Michigan’s need for a next-of-kin law in the state.

Guest:

• State Rep. Jamie Thompson represents Michigan’s 28th House District and serves as Vice Chair of the House Health Policy Committee.

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More stories from The Metro

Bipartisan bills are stuck in legislative gridlock in both the Michigan House and Senate. 

Since the legislative term started in January, only six bills have been passed and landed on Governor Whitmer’s desk. That’s despite lawmakers introducing hundreds of bills. What is going on?

Two reporters from Gongwer News Service, Elena Durnbaugh and Nick Smith, joined the Metro to explain how dysfunctional things are in the State Houe and Senate right now. They co-reported the piece “House, Senate not taking up each other’s bills amid low number of public acts.”

Guests

• Elena Durnbaugh covers the Michigan House of Representatives for Gongwer News Service
• Nick Smith covers the Michigan Senate for Gongwer News Service

Subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on demand.

More stories from The Metro

Michigan’s 2026 gubernatorial race is underway, and MichMash is talking to all of the major candidates. In this week’s episode, WDET host Cheyna Roth and Gongwer News Service’s Alethia Kasben sit down with Former State House Speaker Tom Leonard to learn why he’s running and what sets him apart from other candidates.

Plus, Cheyna and Alethia explain the current status of Michigan’s 2026 fiscal budget.

Subscribe to MichMash on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

In this episode: 

• Why wasn’t the 2026 fiscal budget approved by the July 1 deadline?
• Why is Tom Leonard running for governor?

Highlights

On Duggan running as an Independent

One of the outliers of the 2026 gubernatorial race is Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan running as an Independent. Leonard says that despite Duggan’s party affiliation change, not much else has.

“Ultimately, at the end of the day, the mayor is a Democrat. He is not an Independent,” Leonard told MichMash. “If somebody were to ask him right now where he breaks away from the Democrats on any major issue, I don’t think he could give one.”

Leonard went on to say that he believes Duggan in the race affects Democrats more than Republicans.

On the state budget’s delay

It’s been a month since the July 1 deadline, and the Michigan legislature still hasn’t approved the budget for the 2026 fiscal year. What’s causing the state capitol to fall behind schedule?

“A disagreement over unrelated legislation … led to Republican House Speaker Matt Hall kicking the ranking Democrat Rep. Albus Farhat of Dearborn off of the Appropriations Committee,” Alethia explained. “He was the lead Democrat trying to help negotiate this budget deal.”

As the academic year draws closer, many schools and are creating contingency plans in case the budget isn’t approved before the state fiscal year starts in October.

This week on MichMash, gubernatorial candidate and Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II sat down with WDET’s Cheyna Roth and Gongwer News Service’s Alethia Kasben to explain why he’s running for governor of Michigan and how his engineering background could help.

Plus, we take a look at fundraising progress from the rest of the gubernatorial candidates.

Subscribe to MichMash on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

In this episode:

• Why is Lt. Gov. Gilchrist running for governor?
• How much money have Michigan gubernatorial candidates raised so far?

Engineering change

Gilchrist graduated with two engineering degrees from the University of Michigan. Now as he runs to be the next governor of Michigan while still serving as lieutenant governor of Michigan, he views both jobs as serving the same purpose.

“I have one job, and that is to have as many conversations as possible with people across Michigan every single day … and then to take what they tell me and go make something happen,” he told MichMash. “People need a problem solver in office and that’s what I do as an engineer. I make systems work for people.”

Fundraising updates

All gubernatorial candidates, including Gilchrist, were required to report their first fundraising hauls this week. But despite this major milestone, the race is far from determined.

Democratic candidates include Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson and Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II. Benson has raised $3.5 million in the first six months of her campaign, Swanson has raised $1 million and Gilchrist has raised $750,000. 

While the Democratic field has appeared to settle, the Republican field seems more in flux. Former House Speaker Tom Leonard entered the race just a month ago, and a few weeks ago, 2022 Republican Gubernatorial Nominee Tudor Dixon announced she would not be running in 2026. Other candidates may still enter the race, and it’s possible that U.S. Rep. John James may back out of his gubernatorial bid amid pressure from President Donald Trump to maintain his congressional seat.

But for now, the main Republican candidates are Leonard, Senate Republican Leader Eric Nesbitt, James and former Attorney General Mike Cox. As the deadline to submit fundraising reports isn’t until 5 p.m. on Friday, we didn’t have all the data at the time this episode was recorded on Thursday afternoon. But we do know that Cox has raised $1.4 million and and that James moved $500,000 from his congressional committee to his gubernatorial committee earlier this month.

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan is also running for governor as an Independent, and his fundraising report had not yet been submitted at the time of this recording.

The Republican-led Michigan House Oversight Committee approved a slew of legislative subpoenas Tuesday directed at state departments, including the Attorney General’s office.

The oversight committee has aggressively used its subpoena power in this session to squeeze agencies in an executive branch controlled by Democrats.

The committee authorized two subpoenas demanding records related to the end of a criminal investigation by the Attorney General’s office into a Democratic Party fundraiser. 

Attorney Traci Kornak is a former Michigan Democratic Party treasurer was investigated for insurance fraud in 2022. The department set up internal firewalls due to Kornak’s relationship with Nessel, but GOP committee members say there appears to be evidence that Nessel was kept informed of progress on the inquiry and may have influenced the decision to drop it.

Rep. Jay DeBoyer (R-Clay Twp.), chair of the oversight committee, said the subpoenas were necessary to help come up with improvements to Michigan’s campaign finance laws, but also hinted impeachment could be on the table.

“The House has the power to ability to impeach civil officers of the State of Michigan where corrupt conduct in office occurs,” he said. “In order to faithfully exercise its responsibilities in this regard, the House is entitled to investigate the Department of Attorney General’s decision to decline issuing criminal charges in this matter.”

Another subpoena asks for records and communications with the Department of State related to a campaign committee to include LGBTQ protections in Michigan’s civil rights law.

Tuesday’s round of subpoenas also includes records from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources on its regulation of game ranches and its program for euthanizing Canadian geese as a wildlife control measure.

The committee demanded an in-person appearance by Michigan Health and Human Services Director Elizabeth Hertel, who is a member of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s cabinet.

“House Republicans have raised serious questions for months about troubling reports involving MDHHS — including children sleeping on floors, young people being placed in unvetted out-of-state facilities, instances of welfare and Medicaid fraud, and taxpayer-funded services being extended to individuals without legal status,” said Rep. John Roth (R-Interlochen) in a written statement. “Our goal has always been to work collaboratively behind the scenes to investigate these concerns, but unfortunately, we have not been able to secure the cooperation we had hoped for from the department.”

GOP members of the committee accused Hertel and the MDHHS of stonewalling their inquiries and said she has declined multiple invitations to appear. A health department spokesperson said there was a scheduling conflict, but she was not dodging the committee.

“A subpoena was not necessary to compel the director to appear before the committee,” said MDHHS spokesperson Lynn Sutfin, sharing a letter where Hertel requested an alternate date and a list of topics to be covered in her appearance. 

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• How did the $20 million grant for Beydoun’s nonprofit get approved?
• What role did MEDC play in getting the funding approved?
• How much did the governor’s office know?

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office opened an investigation into the $20 million grant awarded to Beydoun’s nonprofit business accelerator last April, after reporting by The Detroit News highlighted how the funding was being misused.

The $20 million grant — which has since been canceled — had been earmarked in the state Legislature’s 2022 budget for the nonprofit Global Link International, which was incorporated just 10 days before the spending bill’s passage.

But the latest reporting from Mauger and LeBlanc have led to new questions about the circumstances behind the grant’s approval, and what exactly the MEDC and governor’s office knew at the time it was approved.

“There’s a lot more going on here than the governor’s office has informed voters of ever before,” Mauger said. “Essentially the governor’s team has tried to put this all on former House Speaker Jason Wentworth and saying basically that [state] House Republicans put this $20 million grant into the budget at the last second and the governor just signed off on the budget.”

An email obtained by The Detroit News last week sent by MEDC CEO Quentin Messer Jr. to state officials showed that Beydoun had advocated for a similar $15 million grant that had been included in Whitmer’s initial budget recommendation in February 2022.

“We know that eventually in the budget there was a direct earmark for [Beydoun] with language that is very very similar to that international business accelerator,” LaBlanc said. “…the common thread through all of that is Beydoun’s involvement, and the fact that she would qualify for this [grant] at the end of the day.”

Whitmer has not responded to Mauger and LeBlanc’s latest reporting on the matter.

More from WDET:

• Nessel charges politically connected former legislative staffer with corruption
• Detroit Evening Report: A MichMash lookahead; Detroit eases business licensing + more
• MichMash: State Sen. Jeremy Moss seeking more transparency in Michigan government

Student-athletes at state universities would be allowed to organize into unions under bills recently sponsored in the Michigan House of Representatives. The Democratic sponsors say the bills would empower student athletes who often provide great value to their institutions.

The legislation would classify student athletes as university employees instead of amateur competitors.  If signed into law, the bills would set the stage for union bargaining over questions like revenue sharing, training and work conditions, and name image and likeness (NIL) agreements. 

Rep. Joe Tate (D-Detroit) is a former Michigan State University football player who also went pro. He said student athletes who bring money into schools get a bigger voice in their working conditions and, in some cases, a share of ticket sales and lucrative broadcast deals.

“Whether it’s this revenue coming in, and just kind of that explosion there, and student athletes not being able to take advantage of that,” he said.

The legislation follows a settlement agreement between the NCAA and Division 1 schools on revenue sharing with student-athletes.

Earlier this year, the National Labor Relations Board — under pressure from President Donald Trump — also rescinded a 2021 memo that classified college athletes as “employees” with collective bargaining rights. The Trump administration also fired the NLRB attorney who wrote the memo that determined college athletes meet the legal definition of employees.

“Welcome to the future because now that there’s billions of dollars pouring into these schools, these athletic departments for sports entertainment, it is professional,” said Thomas Dieters, who helps negotiate name, image and likeness deals for college athletes, including the Michigan State University women’s gymnastics team.”The schools and the leagues and the NCAA, they just have to come to that realization and admit it, this is professional sports.”

The two bills would allow student athletes to form labor unions and make collective bargaining agreements and strengthen rights to make name, image and likeness (NIL) deals. The legislation is silent on academic requirements or student status to be eligible to play.

That is by design, said state Rep. Carry Rheingans (D-Ann Arbor), one of the bill sponsors.

“That’s so the students and their labor organizers and the universities and the athletic departments would be able to negotiate the terms of the contract,” she said. “I don’t want to dictate the terms of the contract because it’s for the experts, the people who are living this life to negotiate the terms of the contract.”

Rheingans said student-athletes at smaller state universities would benefit even if their schools do not have big broadcast and endorsement contracts. She said bargaining could still include a share of ticket receipts, as well as training conditions and medical benefits.

Legislative Republicans, who control the Michigan House, said they are watching to see how legal developments play out, but are definitely cool to the idea of unionizing student athletes at public universities.

“I think there’s a lot of questions about NIL deals right now. I don’t think anyone’s looking to expand things to let student athletes have a union representing them,” said Rep. Gerald Van Woerkom (R-Norton Shores). “I think there’s much more interest in getting roads funding done and getting the school budget done than in letting student athletes form a union.”

Michigan school districts face tough choices as their fiscal years began Tuesday while the Legislature remains deadlocked on the state K-12 budget.

The Republican-controlled House and the Senate, which is controlled by Democrats, adjourned and left town earlier this week after it became clear they would not reach a deal by the July 1 deadline set in state law. There are big differences between the chambers’ differing versions and it appears possible if not likely the budget will hang fire into the fall.

“We’ve seen school districts passing budgets that make cuts, that pink slip employees, that dip heavily into their reserve funds that they aren’t supposed to be touching,” said Robert McCann, executive director of the K-12 Alliance of Michigan.

McCann said this outcome was foreseeable as the budget process lagged months behind the typical process and missed key benchmarks, including getting initial versions adopted in the spring so they could move to bicameral, bipartisan conference committees to hammer out final versions. Those conference committee versions would have to be approved without amendments in up-or-down votes of the House and Senate before they would go to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer for her signature.

“And instead we were left with this sort of chaos situation of trying to scramble something together before the deadline and, ultimately, there wasn’t the will or the way to make that happen and it’s really because of months and months of inaction,” said McCann. “This failure has been happening over the past five, six months now of delays and inaction and seemingly not caring about the urgency of getting a K-12 budget done on time.”

There are no consequences to lawmakers for missing the July deadline, which was enacted by the Legislature after a 2007 deadlock between then Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D) and a politically divided Legislature led to a brief partial government shutdown.

The state’s fiscal year begins in three months on Oct. 1, when the Michigan Constitution requires a balanced budget to be signed.

Michigan lawmakers left the state capitol Tuesday night again without passing a new state budget for K-12 schools.

Tuesday was the statutory deadline for passing an entire state budget. But lawmakers likely won’t be back for a couple of weeks.

That means school districts have started a new fiscal year without knowing how much money they’ll be getting from the state. 

The Democratic-controlled Senate adjourned first, throwing in the towel in the late afternoon. Leadership said the Senate and the Republican-led House were still worlds apart in their negotiations.

Speaking to reporters, Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks (D-Grand Rapids) said she’d like schools to have more reassurance when it comes to their funding.

“I think we’re in a position where, when we can give them more certainty, sooner is better, and we will do everything we can to get there,” Brinks said before adding, “There’s not much more that they can learn this week. I think we’re continuing to hear from school leaders in our community that the want a better budget — not a fast budget — so that is our guiding principle at this point.”

There are several differences not only between each chamber’s proposals, but how they’re approaching the talks themselves.

The Senate has been adamant about wanting a full budget passed at the same time. House leadership has shut down that idea, instead arguing that a schools budget and a separate roads funding plan that could have implications for school money should go first.

Beyond that, the House schools proposal would raise the base-level funding for schools but cancel out directed spending on items like free school meals or mental health support. House Republicans say it would give districts more flexibility on how they spend their money.

The Senate also proposes more per-student funding but Senate Democrats want that directed spending maintained.

House Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Twp) said he still hoped the House could pass a new proposal with bipartisan support after the Senate walked.

Hall said, as a way to pressure the Senate, he offered House Democrats restored funding for school meals and rural school transportation to gain their votes. He called that deal a win-win, and said a similar deal was on the table with the Senate.

“We win because we keep pressure on to get a school budget done quickly and also to get roads done and they win because they can establish relevancy in the budget process. I thought that was a critical opportunity for them and I think they missed that opportunity,” Hall said.

That plan never came to fruition. After session Tuesday, House Democrats said they didn’t feel Hall was working in good faith.

No budget means schools still don’t know how much money they’ll get for things like teachers, resource officers, or free meals for students.

Michigan lawmakers went home without passing a new budget for K-12 schools Thursday night. That’s despite, both meeting for hours and a statutory July 1 deadline for getting an entire state budget done.

It appears part of the holdup is how to handle earmarks for programs like free school lunches or mental health services. The Democratic-led Senate wants them maintained while the Republican-controlled House of Representatives wants to cut them in favor of giving districts more money per student.

House Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Twp) is also trying to get a road funding plan passed alongside the school budget.

Hall spoke to reporters Thursday night after spending hours negotiating with Senate leadership, the governor, and their teams. He said the leaders were leaving with “a roadmap” that will help them get a deal done next week.

“The House Republicans are committed to working through the weekend, working tomorrow, and working more tonight. Working over the weekend with our goal of still trying to get something done on roads and education by July 1,” Hall said.

Hall said he believed his Democratic counterparts worked better with added pressure from that deadline. He claimed the Senate adding more session days to its calendar for next week as a win.

The Senate had planned to take the first two weeks of July off.

All sides of the negotiating table say they’re optimistic about getting something done, acknowledging it would be difficult.

Reporters caught State Budget Director Jen Flood leaving the governor’s office at the state Capitol Thursday night. She said negotiators were “having great conversations,” when pressed for a comment.

Democrats, however, are still frustrated by the time crunch. They accuse House Republicans of delaying the process by waiting until a couple weeks ago to release their school budget proposal.

Rep. Alabas Farhat (D-Dearborn) is the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee.

“We are seeing a budget process that normally takes months to play out, playing out within a span of four to five days,” Farhat said. “We shouldn’t be in this spot right now where we’re five days before the [statutory] deadline contemplating whether or not we’ll have this budget. So school districts don’t have to keep wondering and teachers don’t have to keep wondering if they’re going to be pink slipped or not.”

Hall said he and House Republicans have been vocal about wanting to keep to the July 1 deadline for months. Democrats have as well, though some have raised doubts in recent weeks about that feasibility without having a complete budget proposal from the House.

The odds of passing a full state budget next week are dim.