House appropriations subcommittee adopts H‑1 substitute for public health budget after questions on waivers, lead and CVI funding

The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Public Health on an organizational meeting adopted the H‑1 substitute to House Bill 5606, the department’s fiscal year 2026–27 public health budget, after a staff briefing and member questions about immunization waivers, lead remediation and community violence intervention funding.

Chair Greene opened the session by saying the subcommittee’s two priorities in negotiations are “prevention” and “accountability,” linking prevention to child-abuse prevention, prenatal substance-abuse efforts, lead mitigation, senior health and tobacco-related health effects. "Number 1 is prevention," Greene said, and added the budget seeks to expand reporting and oversight of grant recipients to curb administrative overhead.

Sydney Walker of House Fiscal gave the staff overview, saying, “We the public health budget had $1,100,000,000 gross, and 321 or 322 million general fund,” and noting that represents an 8.7% decrease in gross spending and an 8.2% decrease in general‑fund support compared with the baseline. Walker described operational adjustments that together account for roughly a $100,000,000 gross reduction (about $11.9 million general fund) based on historical spending reviews, projected lapses from chronically unfilled FTE positions and other formulaic estimates. She also outlined targeted increases, including a $1 million boost for child advocacy center supplemental grants, $1.6 million assumed lapses to support maternal‑infant home‑visiting in counties without services, and a $2 million general‑fund increase for senior nutrition services.

Walker detailed several policy and boilerplate changes included in the H‑1 substitute. Among them is a provision to reappropriate $4.1 million from a statutory earmark of the Capitol Historical Site Fund into the Healthy Michigan Fund for smoking‑cessation activities and a new section (13 50) requiring the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to make nonmedical immunization waivers available on the DHHS website without requiring in‑person appointments or classes.

Minority Vice Chair Price pressed staff on whether the immunization‑waiver change would require statutory amendment. "Would that require a statutory change?" Price asked. Walker replied, “I believe so because that is spelled out in the public health code,” and said she would follow up for confirmation on statutory implications and on how some general‑section boilerplate (for example, restrictions related to court‑approved judgments) would be implemented.

Price also asked why the House recommendation did not add new line items for community violence intervention (CVI) or gun‑violence prevention. Walker said ongoing projects reflected in the current year were retained but that the subcommittee’s recommendation did not add new CVI or gun‑violence prevention line items.

Members asked where lead‑remediation work appears in the budget. Chair Greene and staff said the Childhood Lead Prevention Fund was preserved and described ongoing conversations about moving some drinking‑water emergency dollars into standing programs to better target remediation dollars to households rather than administrative costs.

After the presentation and questions, Chair Greene moved to adopt the H‑1 substitute for House Bill 5606. The clerk called the roll and the substitute was adopted; the recording reported "5 yays, 1 nay, and 1 pass." The subcommittee then voted to report the bill as substitute H‑1 to the House Appropriations Committee with recommendation; the clerk recorded the H‑1 as recommended (reported tally: 5 yays and 1 pass).

The subcommittee concluded with no further business and adjourned. The staff pledge to follow up on statutory questions, the status of funds for court judgments, and precise allocations for lead remediation and CVI funding were the next procedural steps noted on the record.