LANSING, Mich. -- Local government and school officials who would face having to reduce spending or dip into savings under budget cuts passed by Senate Republicans said Friday the cuts are just another Band-Aid solution to mending Michigan's budget ills.
The cuts approved Thursday night also drew the ire of medical groups and advocates for the elderly and mentally ill.
"It's mean-spirited and gutless," said Dohn Hoyle, executive director of The Arc Michigan, a Lansing-based group that supports programs for the developmentally disabled.
It's unlikely the Democratic-controlled House will go along with the entire package of GOP cuts. But groups still are worried about what the plan signals, and the possible consequences if cuts are adopted.
Under the Senate-passed plan, the state would save more than $15 million by reducing the wages and hours for people who care for 40,000-plus low-income seniors and the disabled. Hoyle said there's a 70 percent turnover rate among community mental health workers. He worries that lower wages would ultimately hurt people who depend on the help to stay in their own homes.
Low-income seniors must find helpers on their own, and those workers are paid between $7.50 and $10 an hour by the state, said Mary Ablan, director of the Area Agencies on Aging Association of Michigan. Pay would be reduced to $7 an hour statewide, making it harder to find helpers, she said.
Ablan also criticized a $97,000 cut to home-delivered meals, which has a budget of more than $10 million.
"It's a small cut," she said. "But it's somebody's grandmother who's going to get the phone call saying they can't get meals anymore."
Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, said the cuts are "painful" but argued that the GOP plan would adequately fund public safety, education and health care and help turn around Michigan.
"Once you get used to a certain level of government, it's hard to trim it back," Bishop said. "But we also know that we have an obligation to the state, to the citizens that we represent, to downsize government."
Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm had proposed a new 2 percent tax on most services starting June 1 to help balance a $942 million budget deficit, along with $344 million in savings achieved mostly through accounting changes and delayed payments to universities and community colleges.
But the Senate on Thursday voted down the tax along party lines, approved Granholm's executive order cuts and then sent deeper cuts to the House.
State government shares more than a $1 billion annually in sales tax revenue with local communities. Under the Senate plan, they would lose about $40 million, or 3.7 percent, in the budget year that ends Sept. 30 _ though the fiscal year for many local governments will finish three months earlier, leaving them little time to adjust their spending to reflect the lost dollars.
"It's a failure of the Legislature to step up to plate and really correct a problem they have failed to fix," said Farmington Hills Mayor Vicki Barnett. "They're cutting our money that rightfully belongs to us."
Barnett said the cuts would affect communities differently, with some possibly having to lay off police officers and firefighters.
K-12 public schools would surrender $34 in funding for each student, less than an 0.5 percent cut. Most districts likely will dip into savings this late in the school year to address the shortfall, but a handful could join 21 districts statewide that already have a deficit.
"On the positive side, I'm glad they're doing something _ finally," said Tom White, executive director of the Michigan School Business Officials, which had been preparing school administrators for a $50-per-student reduction.
But cutting education three-quarters of the way through a budget year "is wrong, period," he added. "The really disappointing part is they're not addressing the big issues. This feels like more of the same."
Many groups found out details of the proposal for the first time Thursday night, when GOP Senate leaders made the cuts public in a supplemental budget bill that was quickly rammed through the Senate.
Senate Democrats had little opportunity to debate the cuts, since Republicans called for a vote on the measure soon after Democrats learned what the bill entailed.
The GOP plan also would reduce Medicaid provider rates by 1 percent and scale back payments for doctors and ambulances. Groups representing physicians and hospitals said they're struggling to maintain the safety net for Michigan's 1 million uninsured and 1.5 million Medicaid recipients, and warned more low-income patients might turn to more expensive care in emergency rooms.
Republicans, however, noted that their plan would avoid the first state police trooper layoffs since 1980 by restoring funding. The Granholm administration had given layoff notices to 29 troopers effective April 1 because of the budget deficit.
The GOP bills also would cut spending in the Legislature and various state department.
___
David Eggert can be reached at deggert(at)ap.org
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
