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Democrats and Republicans in Michigan newly divided Legislature failed to pass a budget by a Tuesday deadline written into state law — a blow for schools that sought funding certainty as they finalize their own spending plans.

It been “extremely frustrating” said Robert McCann, executive director of the K-12 Alliance of Michigan, a public schools advocacy organization.

Michigan lawmakers met for hours on Tuesday, but the Democratic-led Senate adjourned around 5 p.m. at the same place it started: No consensus with the Republican-led House over separate and previously approved spending plans.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, had proposed her own $84 billion state budget plan in February and had been attempting to negotiate a related road funding plan with House Speaker Matt Hall, R-Richland Township.

Legislators from both major parties blamed each other on Tuesday as they failed to reach a deal.

“Part of the challenge, of course, is Speaker Matt Hall is getting in the way every step of the way,” said Sen. Darrin Camilleri, a Browntown Township Democrat who chairs the upper chamber School Aid budget subcommittee.

“The House and the governor were always the most serious about getting this done by the deadline and helping our local schools, and now they’re apparently  the only ones still at the table,” Hall spokesperson Gideon D’Assandro said in a statement after the Senate adjourned.

Michigan schools will be some of the first institutions impacted by the Legislature failure to reach a compromise.

School districts began their new fiscal years on Tuesday, requiring them to have their own new budgets in place. But they still don’t know how much money they’ll have from the state to work with.

While past Legislatures have not always completed state budgets by the beginning of July, negotiations have generally been far enough along to at least give schools and local governments a rough idea of what their funding will look like in the upcoming fiscal year.

Not this time.

“If a budget is a 10 step process, usually at this point you’re at kind of like step eight,” said McCann, of the K-12 alliance. “This year we’re kind of at step three.”

That in large part because the two chambers passed dramatically different budgets, forcing schools to take a split-screen approach.

“It makes it nearly impossible for any district to properly plan for the upcoming school year, which means they pass budgets that are in many cases just complete guesswork,” McCann said.

Competing plans

While lawmakers will not face any penalties for missing the July 1 deadline — and technically have until October to complete a budget — the governor and legislative leaders had each hoped for a spending deal by summer.

But budget bills passed by each chamber were significantly different, particularly when it came to education. The Senate $84.5 billion plan was rendered out of balance when state officials lowered revenue projections in May, and the process has been complicated by federal proposals that could reduce funding for the state.

An education budget approved by the Democratic-led Senate would mostly preserve traditional funding models for K-12 schools, albeit with some tweaks.

The House did not approve a full budget but in June approved a $21.9 billion education budget that would have upended funding allocations and included a number of controversial provisions, including penalties for schools that maintain diversity initiatives, allow transgender girls to play girls sports or have unisex bathrooms for LGBTQ students.

The House plan would significantly raise per-pupil funding for all schools by eliminating money for specific purposes, such as funding for a free breakfast and lunch program championed by Whitmer.

There are tangible consequences for schools now facing uncertainty over state funding, according to McCann. Some districts are cutting staff due to anticipated belt-tightening, while others are preparing to dip into reserve funds, he said.

Local governments, many of which also operate on July 1 fiscal years, are in a similar boat, but not to the same extent. Much of their revenue is linked to constitutionally-mandated funding shared by the state government at the same rate every year, which lends some predictability to their planning.

What next?

Democratic legislative leaders made clear Tuesday that a deal is far from imminent. Even as the Republican-led House went into a late-night session, Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks, a Democrat from Grand Rapids, told reporters she was “100% certain” there would be no budget finalized that day.

“We’re continuing to hear from school leaders in our communities that they want a better budget, not a fast budget,” Brinks told reporters Tuesday.

The state House could still amend and approve the Senate education budget later Tuesday to preserve a chance for a deal this week.

The Michigan Senate is tentatively scheduled to meet Wednesday, but the House is not scheduled to convene again until July 15 as both chambers begin to take time off for the Fourth of July holiday and a traditional summer break.

“We’re trying to find common ground where we can, but … obviously we’ve got a big gap that needs to get closed,” Camilleri said.

Michigan officials wrote the July 1 budget deadline into state law in 2019 as part of a deal between Whitmer and a Republican-led Legislature that also restored some of the $1 billion in line-item vetoes the governor had made to a GOP state budget.

The law does not include any penalties for missing the July 1 deadline, however. A government shutdown would only occur if Whitmer and lawmakers fail to finalize a budget by Oct. 1, the constitutional deadline to begin a new fiscal year with a balanced budget.

Former Gov. Rick Snyder had made it a point to complete budgets by June, and he worked with Republican-led legislatures to do so every year of his tenure except 2017, when he signed the state budget in mid-July.

Snyder’s push followed more tumultuous budget debates under Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who presided over brief government shutdowns in 2007 and 2009 after failing to finalize deals with divided legislatures by midnight on Oct. 1. In both cases, the governor and lawmakers struck deals hours later, minimizing the impact of the shutdowns.

This article is being republished through a syndication agreement with Bridge Michigan. Bridge Michigan is Michigan largest nonprofit news service and one of the nation leading and largest nonprofit civic news providers. Their coverage is nonpartisan, fact-based, and data-driven. Find them online at  .