State officials say they don’t expect they’ll have to lay off employees due to the loss of $150 million dollars in federal funds this year and next. That’s how much the state is expected to lose because of the budget standoff in Washington.
The state budget office says it has a plan that averts public employee layoffs.
But Governor Rick Snyder says the state has no plans to replace the money lost because of sequestration – which amounts to about four-tenths of one percent of total state spending.
“We’ve said from the start that Michigan would not be replacing lost federal dollars with state dollars due to sequestration and that still holds true,” Snyder said in a written statement. “We support getting the nation’s fiscal house in order, though across-the-board cuts like this are not the way to go about it. We took a much more thoughtful approach here in Michigan in putting the budget in balance.”
Which is not to say the cuts won’t have an impact. Most of the cuts will affect grants to schools and local governments.
Among the programs that will be lost is the clothing allowance for 21 thousand low-income kids as they are about to start school.
