2003 House Bill 4396 ↩

House Roll Call 125: Passed

The House version of the Fiscal Year (FY) 2003-2004 Higher Education budget. (Note: Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s proposal for this budget is <a href="http://www.michiganvotes.org/2003-HB-4417">House Bill 4417 </a>.) This appropriates $1.715 billion in adjusted gross spending (funded from all sources, including special state restricted fund and federal pass-through dollars, minus interdepartmental transfers), compared to $1.943 billion, which was the FY 2002-2003 amount enrolled in 2002, excluding any supplemental appropriations, line-item vetoes, or later cuts. Of this, $1.632 billion will come from the general fund (funded by actual state tax revenues), compared to the FY 2002-2003 amount enrolled in 2002 of $1.812 billion. Under the House version, state aid to Eastern Michigan, Ferris State, Lake Superior State, Michigan Tech, Northern Michigan, U-M, and Wayne State universities would be cut 6.74 percent from their current year appropriations. This was the cut proposed in the Executive budget for all universities. Six other universities, Grand Valley State, Saginaw Valley State, Central Michigan, MSU, Oakland, and Western Michigan, would receive cuts of 5.45 percent to 5.95 percent. These six schools currently receive less per-student funding than the other seven schools. The money to fund the smaller cuts to these schools was transferred from the Tuition Incentive Program which provides financial aid to Medicaid-eligible low income high school graduates. The House bill restores $60 million in tobacco lawsuit funding for the $2,500 merit scholarship awards made to high school students who do well on the state MEAP test. The governor proposed reducing these scholarships to $500, and using the money for low income health care. The source of this money is tobacco lawsuit receipts (See <a href="http://www.michiganvotes.org/2003-HB-4392">House Bill 4392 </a>.) Also, the House did not accept the governor’s proposal to replace five competitive- and needs-based financial aid and scholarship programs for students at independent or public colleges with a single needs-based Michigan Opportunity Scholarship program. Much more information on Michigan’s budget is available at <a href="http://www.mackinac.org/4964">Hot Topics: Michigan’s Budget Challenge</a> at www.mackinac.org/4964.