Michigan League for Public Policy Releases Budget Brief for the Governor’s 2016 Budget

The Michigan League for Public Policy releases it’s Budget Brief: First look at the Governor’s 2016 Budget

Click here to link to MLPP’s website the Budget Brief document or see excerpt below:

Gov. Rick Snyder’s budget for Fiscal Year 2016 includes many important investments in families and children, despite lower than expected revenues, including:

• A new $49 million initiative to improve reading by third grade;
• $100 million in additional funding for children at risk of falling behind their peers academically;
• Funding to expand the number of child care licensing inspectors the state needs to keep children safe;
• Increases in child care provider payments and policy changes that allow families to keep their child care even if their incomes increase;
• An expansion of dental care to children ages 0-8 receiving Medicaid in the state’s most populous counties of Wayne, Oakland and Kent;
• An increase in funding for mental health services for people not eligible for Medicaid;
• $6 million in new funding for community college independent part-time student grants; and
• Increased funding for universities contingent on limits in tuition increases of 2.8% or less.

Despite these wins for lower-wage families and their children, there are many critical state services that continue to be underfunded, ultimately thwarting the state’s economic growth. Children are living in deeper poverty in Michigan in part because of policy changes that reduced eligibility for income assistance programs – including stringent lifetime caps on assistance and the elimination of income support for an entire family due to the truancy of a single child. Fewer families can receive food assistance and food assistance benefits have been reduced, in part the result of a state asset test. And, while there have been small increases recently in support for public schools, universities and communities, in most cases, they have not fully restored cuts taken during the Great Recession even without factoring in the pressures created by inflationary increases in costs.

Read more by clicking here or visiting: http://www.mlpp.org/a-first-look-at-the-governors-fiscal-year-2016-budget#sthash.obEn0LWb.dpuf