2003 Senate Bill 270 ↩

Senate Roll Call 82: Passed

The Senate version of the Fiscal Year (FY) 2003-2004 General Government budget, which funds the Attorney General, Civil Rights Department, Civil Service Department, Executive, Legislature, Department of Management and Budget, Department of State, Department of Information Technology, and Department of Treasury. (Note: Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s proposed budget for this department is <a href="http://www.michiganvotes.org/2003-SB-312">Senate Bill 312 </a>.) This would appropriate $2.221 billion in adjusted gross spending (funded from all sources, including special state restricted fund and federal pass-through dollars, plus interdepartmental transfers), compared to $2.326 billion, which was the FY 2002-2003 amount enrolled in 2002, excluding any supplemental appropriations, line-item vetoes, or later cuts. Of this, $358.8 million would come from the General Fund (funded by actual state tax revenues), compared to the FY 2002-2003 amount enrolled in 2002 of $365.3 million. The Senate stripped out an administration proposal to allow the department to keep half of any appropriations not been spent at the end of the year as an incentive to cut costs, rather than having the funds lapse into the general fund, and also an unallocated "contingency fund" appropriation contained in the executive proposal for this and other departmental budgets. It also gives the Secretary of State and Attorney General offices greater flexibility than other departments in defining exceptions to a state hiring freeze. 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.