LANSING — Yesterday, the House of Representatives approved the state budget for fiscal year 2018-19. State Rep. Vanessa Guerra (D-Saginaw) voted against both the General and School Omnibus budgets. In response, Rep. Guerra issued the following statement:

“Unfortunately, these budgets do not reflect the priorities of Michiganders throughout our state. Every day we hear about the need to support our children and schools, but this budget had a record $900 million taken from the School Aid Fund to cover shortfalls in the General Fund. Funding to improve our roads still fall short of what we need despite the registration fee and tax increases Republicans passed for that sole purpose. The people of our state deserve whole-hearted investments into the programs and services they rely on. Instead, this budget introduced new policy provisions for partnership agreement schools that force them to indiscriminately replace one-fourth of their staff if they don’t improve immediately. In addition, the state once again left working families behind when they failed to make whole the victims who were falsely accused and charged with fraud by the Unemployment Insurance Agency. Republicans have failed to put our dollars to work for the people of our state with these budgets, and I could not support them.”

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