2003 House Bill 4396 ↩

Senate Roll Call 232: Passed

The Senate version of the Fiscal Year (FY) 2003-2004 Higher Education budget. (Note: Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s proposed budget for this department is <a href="http://www.michiganvotes.org/2003-HB-4417">House Bill 4417 </a>.) This appropriates $1.818 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, $1.642 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 Senate version, a $4,000 per-student funding floor would be established for all state universities, which means large funding increases for Grand Valley, Oakland and Saginaw Valley State Universities. State aid to other universities would be cut by 3.3 percent to 6.74 percent from their current year levels. The Senate also includes $4 million requested by the governor and stripped by the House for the Tuition Incentive Program, which provides financial aid to Medicaid-eligible low income high school graduates. The Senate bill restores 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>.) The Senate 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. Finally, the Senate added $10 million for a grant to Western Michigan University to create a life sciences research and commercialization center intended to keep in the Kalamazoo area 75 to 100 scientists and support staff formerly employed by the Pfizer/Pharmacia Corporation. This is in response to news that following the purchase by Pfizer of the Pharmacia Corporation, the company will close some drug research operations in the area. The $10 million will come from money that would have been used for a targeted tax credit that Pfizer will not receive, because current law makes the credit contingent on creating a certain number of new jobs. All told, the Senate bill is $102.7 million (gross spending), and $9.5 million (general fund spending) over the governor’s recommendation. 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.