Speaker Matt Hall and Rep. Alabas Farhat on Jan. 14, 2025 | Anna Liz Nichols
Proving the adage that elections have consequences, House Republicans announced changes to the budget process at a press conference Tuesday in which state Representative Ann Bollin (R-Brighton Twp.) was named as the new chair of the House Appropriations Committee.
Republicans regained control of the state House as a result of the November election, ending the two-year Democratic trifecta of controlling both legislative chambers, as well as the governor’s office.
Introducing Bollin as the GOP’s “slasher,” House Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Twp.) said their focus would be to find savings in a budget that had increased by more than 40% under Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. During the first four years of her tenure, Republicans controlled both chambers and Democrats were in charge of the Legislature during the last two years.
“When I started, it was $57 billion, and now it’s $83, $84 billion. Somebody has to go back and look at this and try to find some value for the taxpayers,” Hall told reporters.
Much of that increase came from the more than $6.5 billion in federal COVID relief funds provided to the state through the American Rescue Plan. Michigan is in the black for the coming 2026 fiscal year, with state economic experts last week predicting modest growth in tax revenues.
Regardless, Bollin said her task in overseeing the budget-writing process will be about “restoring fiscal responsibility” and cutting waste.
“We have a real problem with the public’s trust, and we are committed to working on behalf of the Michigan taxpayers to restore the public trust. This is a new era, we believe, in finding value for the taxpayers’ dollars,” she said. “My caucus has this commitment to members of the House of Representatives, that we are going to approach this budget, it’s going to be a principled budget, not a political budget.”
Key to the approach will be a new structure that will split up the subcommittee that usually works on the state Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) budget, which composes almost half of the state’s overall budget, into three parts:
- Medicaid and Behavioral Health: Focusing on Medicaid’s federal dollars and state connections including Medicaid financing, Healthy Michigan, the long-term Medicaid budget outlook, and behavioral health services.
- Human Services: Focusing on public programs with a client-focused individual impact, including temporary aid for needy families, public assistance programs, child welfare programs, juvenile justice, and local field operations.
- Public Health: Focusing on public programs with a wider availability and community-wide impact, including community health services, maternal health, aging services, and broader health policy.
Other changes include moving the budget process for the Michigan Department of Lifelong Education, Advancement and Potential (MiLEAP) away from the labor department’s budget and instead housing it in the same subcommittee as higher education and community colleges; combining the judiciary and corrections budgets into a single subcommittee; and creating a separate subcommittee for the Michigan State Police, which was previously included with Military and Veterans Affairs.
Also announced Tuesday was Rep. Matt Maddock (R-Milford) as the appropriations committee’s vice chair and Rep. Alabas Farhat (D-Dearborn) as minority vice chair, although Farhat had yet to be informed of his appointment prior to the press conference and had to be told by a staffer.
“I think the conversation has to be around the cost of living crisis that people are experiencing, and how we solve that, how we take real steps towards affordability, which I know we’ve started these past two years, and hopefully we continue doing,” Farhat said after arriving at the press conference toward its conclusion and accepting the appointment.
Farhat was among those recommended to Hall for the Appropriations Committee by House Minority Leader Ranjeev Puri (D-Canton), although Puri had wanted Rep. Will Snyder (D-Muskegon) to serve as minority vice chair.
The changes to the budgeting process follow alterations introduced by the GOP majority to the House rules for the 2025-26 session that give the House Oversight Committee the power to issue subpoenas without a majority vote in the House, but instead with a simple majority vote by the committee itself, a prelude to expected investigations of the state’s Democratic executive officials, including Whitmer, who’s considered a top 2028 presidential candidate; Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, who’s expected to launch a 2026 gubernatorial bid; and Attorney General Dana Nessel.
Advance reporter Anna Liz Nichols contributed to this story.
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