LANSING — Today, the House passed the General Omnibus and School Omnibus budgets. In response, state Rep. Jewell Jones (D-Inkster) issued the following statement:
“As the representative for Michigan’s 11th House District, I would gladly support General Omnibus and School Omnibus budgets that help families attain economic freedom, prepare young people for the best-paying jobs of the future and build a thriving economy that works for everyone in Michigan. These budgets won’t do that. The School Aid Fund budget contains a measure that threatens to punish schools that are already struggling by closing them or forcing them to lay off a quarter of their teachers if they can’t meet impossible goals within 18 months. In Inkster, we already know how closing a community’s schools rips the heart out of a neighborhood, so there’s no way I can support that. Meanwhile, the General Fund Budget does nothing to help out the Flint families who are still in need of clean water, even though the state has halted bottled water distribution, or to make whole the families who were wrongly accused of unemployment fraud after a state computer glitch. I had hoped to be able to support the Fiscal Year 2018-19 budgets, but they deeply disappoint me.”