In Detroit, Whitmer puts focus on safety and jobs while signing off on $83B budget

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer discusses highlights of the Fiscal Year 2025 state budget before signing the bill at Detroit Fire Department Enginehouse 52 on July 24, 2024. | Kyle Davidson

Following a roaring introduction from Detroit Fire Department Chief James Harris, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Wednesday put her signature to the $82.5 billion state budget for Fiscal Year 2025 after touting funds for public safety, economic security and infrastructure. 

Whitmer gathered with Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, Michigan House Speaker Joe Tate (D-Detroit), Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks (D-Grand Rapids), House Appropriations Committee Chair Angela Witwer (D-Delta Twp.), Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Sarah Anthony (D-Lansing) and multiple other state and city officials to discuss the potential impacts of the budget for the upcoming fiscal year, which is set to begin on Oct. 1.

“What we have done here is create another balanced, fiscally responsible budget that doesn’t raise taxes by a dime, but yet makes another deposit into our rainy day fund which claims a new all time high of $2.2 billion,” Whitmer said. “So we are responsible, and yet making long overdue investments in things that matter and things that make people’s lives better.” 

On Tuesday, Whitmer signed the $23.4 billion FY 2025 education budget in Flint.

Ahead of Whitmer’s speech, Duggan praised a number of the state’s investments, including $100 million invested into constructing additional affordable housing, noting the state has traditionally relied on the federal government for affordable housing rather than state funding. 

Duggan also cheered the more than $500 million included in the FY 2025 budget for lead water line replacement. 

“In previous times, Lansing waited until there was a crisis on the lead pipes to act. But we are right now replacing 200 houses a week with new pipes,” Duggan said. 

“We’re not waiting until eventually these pipes start to deteriorate because of the support of the state of Michigan,” Duggan said. 

He also pointed to the newly established Public Safety Trust Fund which received $75 million in the budget to support law enforcement and community violence intervention in Michigan cities, villages and townships.

“In the city of Detroit, we’re committing a third of our share right from the beginning to our community violence initiative. The folks who are in the neighborhoods who are preventing the shots in the first place, they were funded with federal money that was going to expire in July,” Duggan said.

“You go to the Warrendale neighborhood for the last year, the shootings are down 70%. It is absolutely a function of the community violence teams in those neighborhoods,” Duggan said.

The city will also be able to hire another 100 police officers, Duggan said, noting the mayors of many other Michigan cities were already prepared to hire additional officers. 

While the budget builds on the rollback of the state’s retirement tax and its expansion of the earned income tax credit, this year’s budget is focused on safety, Whitmer said, pointing to legislative efforts to reduce gun violence and strengthen the state’s criminal code for domestic abusers alongside the impacts noted by Duggan. 

“We want to make sure that every Michigander, no matter where you live, is safe as you go to work, drop your kids off at school, run errands. This budget gets it done,” Whitmer said. 

Whitmer also spotlighted funding in the budget to support economic security for Michigan families by building factories, creating jobs and bringing supply chains home. 

The budget includes $45.5 million for talent and growth to support the state’s current and future workforce needs, grow Michigan’s population and assist businesses looking to locate or expand into the state. It also deposits $500 million in the Strategic Outreach Attraction Reserve (SOAR) fund, which is used to attract manufacturers and industries to the state. 

It also supplies the newly established Economic and Worker Transition Office with $2.5 million alongside an additional $8.6 million for a pilot fund to aid Michiganders with the transition to electric vehicles and clean energy, and preparation for advanced energy and mobility jobs. 

The budget includes $60 million to establish an Innovation Fund to invest in scalable startups and help entrepreneurs launch new companies in the state. 

Whitmer also pointed to $3 million in funding to establish a farm to family program,” to bring Michigan crops to Michigan tables.”

As summer construction continues, Whitmer said the upcoming fiscal year would herald the final $700 million bond in her Rebuilding Michigan Plan, focused on rebuilding critical state highways and bridges. 

The state budget also invests $4.2 million for road and bridge construction projects, including $1.7 billion from the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.  

Whitmer touted $150 million to support the reopening of the Palisades Nuclear Facility. While Whitmer said the first in the nation effort would protect 600 jobs and provide energy supply energy to hundreds of thousands of households, multiple environmental groups called on the governor to invest the funds into environmental priorities such as drinking and wastewater issues, public transit, environmental cleanups and energy efficiency upgrades for housing.

The budget also includes funding for a number of health initiatives, including $161.5 million to establish new community behavioral health clinics across the state and $18.1 million to continue the Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies program which is aimed at reducing racial disparities in infant and maternal mortality. 

Members of the Michigan Legislative Black Caucus highlighted funding for a number of efforts supporting maternal and infant health including $3.9 million gross and $1.1 million from the general fund to support doula care and $3.3 million gross and $918,700 from the general fund to support the Maternal Infant Health Program.

The caucus praised several other budget items, including $10 million for minority-owned business grants, $3 million to the Michigan Independent Retailers Association to aid food wholesale and retail merchants in combating food deserts, and $250,000 to fund a study that assesses the impact of implicit bias training requirements for Michigan health professionals on access to and delivery of health care services.

 “We’ve transformed once-in-a-generation investments into our sustained commitment to shared priorities, creating a moral document and values statement that provides much-needed ongoing support for the people of Michigan,” Anthony said in a statement. “While Michiganders of color were ignored in the state budget process for decades, as the first Black woman Senate Appropriations Chair, I have ensured that we are finally getting a voice in the process.”

However, not all members of the Legislature were pleased with the budget with some Republicans accusing majority Democrats of prioritizing “wasteful pet projects for politically favored communities.” 

Both the budget bills for Fiscal Year 2025 passed along party lines, with Republicans in both chambers voting against the two bills. 

“The state budget should responsibly address the needs of the entire state of Michigan, such as fixing broken roads and keeping our neighborhoods and schools safe. Democrats’ priorities lie elsewhere,” Rep. Andrew Beeler (R- Port Huron) said in a statement. 

State Rep. John Roth (R-Interlochen) argued the budget did not include enough funding for infrastructure projects in northern Michigan. 

“The lack of key funding for infrastructure projects was evident across Northern Michigan,” Roth said in a statement. “But that’s how the governor operates. It doesn’t matter how planned out or vital funding is for a project. It doesn’t matter that sewer systems are failing, or a library roof is falling in. The only time the governor cares about people north of Grand Rapids is when she needs another vote.”

Beeler also argued the budget failed to include accountability measures for local projects saying the legislation did not include proposals from House Republicans accountability measures like requiring recipients to submit a spending plan before receiving funds, conducting an annual audit on grant spending, and pausing and investigating projects that misuse resources.

While funds for many local projects requested by lawmakers were cleared, not all of them escaped the governor’s pen, with Whitmer vetoing five requests totaling nearly $9.2 million. This includes $2.5 million for a grant program for faith-based organizations providing affordable housing, $425,000 for the construction of an indoor gun range and $3 million in rebates to gas stations to incentivize ethanol sales. 

When asked about her decision to veto the gun range funding and a $250,000 grant to a nonprofit investment firm for historic building rehabilitation in Detroit, Whitmer said “When we don’t negotiate things, I don’t think anyone should be surprised that they’re taken out of the budget. So I’m comfortable with that.”

“If the colleagues who put those items in want to have a conversation, I’m open to it, but that was the rationale,” Whitmer said. 

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