Michigan Up for $600M in Aid (MI)
August 9, 2010
Michigan is in line to get more than $600 million in school and Medicaid funding under a bill going to a vote before the U.S. House on Tuesday.
The $26.1 billion measure passed the Senate last week before members left Washington for their summer recess. It includes $10 billion for school districts to stave off teacher layoffs.
Michigan is slated to get more than $310 million in education money, the equivalent of 4,700 average teacher salaries, according to numbers provided by federal Department of Education.
Gov. Jennifer Granholm defended the federal aid bill on CNN’s "State of the Union" Sunday morning, saying, "There is no doubt that this has been critically important money for us, as we make our way through this recession."
"This is not for bureaucracy," Gra nholm said. "This is for people, real people who need real help out here. And this bill was entirely funded … this doesn’t add to the deficit."
Tiffany Brown, spokeswoman for Granholm, said the money will be administered by state education officials and used to retain classroom jobs for the next school year.
Last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi took the rare step of calling the lower chamber back from recess Tuesday for what’s expected to be a quick session to pass the bill: one vote to take up the Senate’s measure and debate it and another to approve the bill.
If the measure is passed by the House, as is expected, President Barack Obama could sign it next week, making the funding available in time for the academic year.
"This legislation is critical for Michigan," Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing, told The Detroit News at an event with manufacturers last week in Washington. "It’s the difference between 25 or 50 kids in the classroom. It helps close up the gap in Medicaid funding."
But that other part of the package — the roughly $300 million for Federal Medical Assistance Percentages funds — is still $260 million short of what state officials had been hoping for, and will leave them looking for places to trim.
In stumping for passage of the bill earlier this summer, Granholm warned that cutting FMAP funding could result in further cuts in state payments to doctors for Medicaid patients, which already net physicians roughly half what their Medicare counterparts bring in. With the cut in funding looming, doctors warned that it may have been financially impossible for them to continue seeing Medicaid patients.
State budg et negotiations in Lansing have languished in recent weeks as legislators waited to see how the federal impasse over FMAP funding would shake out.
Late last month, Granholm said optional parts of the Medicaid program, like mental health and prescription drug coverage, could face cuts if the state didn’t receive the full $560 million it needed. Granholm also said she’s looking at raising revenues to plug the cap, but state Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, has signaled he’ll be sticking to his party’s promise to not raise taxes.
Michigan is one of 30 states that are depending on FMAP funding to close budget gaps, according to data compiled by the National Conference of State Legislatures.
The FMAP funding troubles date back to last year, when Congress provided funding for the program as part of the massive stimulus bill.
States were told they could rely on an extension for the funding, but Democrats failed to get Republican support for a larger bill earlier this summer that would have extended unemployment benefits and provided the FMAP and teacher aid.
Dubbed the "tax extenders" bill, that legislation ended up being separated due to Republican opposition; the unemployment insurance extension was passed and signed into law last month.