Whitmer signs virus relief bill into law
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed at least $2.4 billion in COVID-19 relief spending Tuesday while vetoing roughly $650 million after Michigan Republicans did not negotiate with her and tied other aid to legislation that would have curbed her administration’s authority to order pandemic restrictions.
It’s the latest move in a long-running dispute between the Gop-led Legislature and the Democratic governor over her pandemic response. As expected, Whitmer vetoed a bill that would have ceded the state health department’s power to close schools and prohibit sports to local health departments, allowing them to act only if certain metrics were met.
Republicans had linked about $840 million in federal K-12 funding to the measure. The fate of that wasn’t immediately clear because the governor’s office and the attorney general were conducting a legal review. Whitmer vetoed $87 million in proposed federal funding for private schools and $10 million in federal dollars for parents whose children enroll in summer school until a deal is reached.
She also nixed $405 million in state-funded grants to businesses and a $150 million deposit of general funds into the state’s unemployment account.
Whitmer said the legislation left more than $2 billion in federal money unallocated.
“As Michigan goes allout to finally beat back this awful pandemic and turn the page to recovery, we need every last dollar to work for us before the Legislature takes its spring break,” she wrote to lawmakers. “I look forward to teaming up to make that happen, and that’s why I’ve asked my budget director to convene a meeting to start negotiations as soon as possible.”
She did OK federal funding, however, for vaccine distribution, testing, rental assistance and a 15% boost in food assistance benefits. A $2 hourly wage hike for direct care workers, which expired Feb. 28, will retroactively rise to $2.25 and be extended through September.
Republicans criticized the governor’s vetoes. After an October court ruling upended her emergency orders, she used the state Department of Health and Human Services to continue tightening and loosening restrictions under a law with origins dating to the 1918 flu pandemic.
“If she cared about anything other than preserving her own self-declared power, she would not have vetoed so much of the Legislature’s $4.2 billion relief plan,” said House Appropriations Committee Chairman Thomas Albert of Lowell.