LANSING — Today, the House of Representatives approved the state budget for fiscal year 2018-19. State Rep. Brian K. Elder (D-Bay City) voted against both the General and School Omnibus budgets. In response, Rep. Elder issued the following statement:
“The School Omnibus budget propagated Republican’s attacks on teachers, eroding their ability to negotiate together for better working conditions and threatening the security of their jobs if a struggling school fails to meet certain benchmarks — but of course, charter schools will be held to softer standards. Instead of bullying our schools into compliance, we should be providing faculty and staff the resources and funding they need to be successful. Unfortunately, it appears that is not how Republican leadership chooses to govern our state.
“The General Omnibus budget also left much to be desired. Republicans again failed to help the community of Flint as it suffers through our state’s worst humanitarian crisis in recent history. They neglected to make whole the tens of thousands of people falsely accused of unemployment fraud because of a computer glitch. They cut critical funding for autism support programs that thousands of Michiganders and their families rely on. And they still fell far too short of providing the funding necessary to actually fix our hazardous roads. The budgets before us today did nothing to build opportunity for my people nor for Michiganders in any corner of the state.”