State representative warns late budget deal cuts local revenue, shifts school aid to roads

State Rep. Dylan Wegela, D-Mich., told the Garden City City Council on Oct. 6 that the Michigan Legislature passed two linked budgets only days before the Oct. 1 deadline and that he voted against the final deal because of how it reallocates revenue and was rushed through the process.

Wegela said the legislature avoided a government shutdown by passing short-term funding and then approving the full budgets after a late-night session. “We were forced to vote on this essentially blind,” he said, adding that lawmakers received a 240-page summary with only a few hours to review and a full thousand‑page document with about 30 minutes for line‑by‑line review.

The representative described several provisions he said influenced his vote: aligning Medicaid rules with federal requirements to preserve federal dollars; decoupling Michigan tax law from a federal corporate tax change (which he said prevented roughly $540 million in lost revenue); a swap of the sales tax on gasoline for a gas tax that reduced constitutional revenue sharing to local governments by about $64 million with no backfill; a roughly $400 million shift from the School Aid Fund toward higher education; and a new 24% wholesale cannabis tax intended to fund roads that he said may face court challenges.

Wegela said the budget increases per‑pupil funding by $442 but also reduces certain reimbursements districts receive for teacher retirement (MPSERS) by about $100 million. He said many departments took cuts and the package reduces roughly 2,000 budgeted positions statewide — about 1,100 of those “unfunded” already and roughly 900 that had been actively recruited.

Wegela warned the city to expect a drop in constitutionally distributed revenue and said Garden City should receive some road and public‑safety funding; he said the city’s share of the new public‑safety allocation is roughly $54,000 and that he has asked the House Fiscal Agency for a road‑funding estimate. Council member King later said the city’s preliminary revenue‑sharing estimate showed a net loss of about $136,892, partially offset by about $58,000 in new public‑safety dollars.

Wegela also criticized how leadership negotiated the deal, said he voted against the budgets, and described uncertainty around the wholesale cannabis tax — including the possibility of injunctions that could withhold $420 million in promised road funding while courts decide the tax’s constitutionality.

The representative encouraged residents to attend a coffee hour at Radcliffe Center on Oct. 13 for further discussion and provided his House contact information to the council.

The council did not take formal action on the state budgets during the meeting; the remarks were presented as an informational update.