Legislator takes action to reverse governor’s budget cuts

Rep. Graham Filler today voted with the state House to reverse the governor’s cuts to public safety, education, veterans’ services, health care, and several other programs helping the people of Michigan.

“People in our community are understandably upset by these devastating cuts,” said Filler, of DeWitt. “I’ve listened to everyone’s concerns, and I’m working hard to restore funding for public safety, rural health care and other programs our most vulnerable residents rely on every day.”

Filler is fighting to reverse the governor’s $13 million in cuts to the program allowing sheriffs to hire patrols for secondary roads, which last year amounted to more than $100,000 for both Clinton and Gratiot counties. He’s also fighting to restore $10 million Gov. Whitmer eliminated for school safety grants.

Filler also voted to restore funding for:

• Health care. The House plan restores $7.9 million for rural hospitals providing obstetrician care, $16.6 million for rural hospitals serving relatively high rates of Medicaid and low-income patients, $10.7 million to improve pediatric psychiatric services, roughly $1.5 million to help children with autism, and more than $1 million to fight opioid drug abuse.
• Education. The House vote would restore funding for literacy programs, dropout recovery programs and rural school transportation.
• Veterans. The plan would restore grants Whitmer vetoed to ensure military veterans can get access to services they need at the county level, along with several other veto reversals.
  The measures approved by the House next advance to the Senate for further consideration.

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