The following column was published by the Lapeer County Press on Saturday, September 6

Last week, the Michigan House took the first step in adopting a budget for the upcoming fiscal year. The House’s approved budget plan comes after we voted to advance a K-12 School Aid budget in June.

As a member of the House Appropriations Committee, I take my responsibility to ensure that we are using tax dollars in an efficient and effective manner very seriously. We have watched government spending increase by over 40% since the governor took office. This is a totally unsustainable path. Our state budget plan should be responsible and balanced. It must be one that provides people with the best value on their tax dollars while addressing priorities for residents and communities — like support for our students in the classroom, good local roads and robust public safety resources. That is what hardworking taxpayers deserve.

To do this, each House Appropriations subcommittee chair was tasked with going through their portion of the budget, line by line, to evaluate what was required by court order, statute, or constitution. To this end, cumulatively there were over 130 hours of hearings as part of the House budget process. The result: a budget that looks much different than those from previous years.

The Senate has passed its own budget, and the two plans differ in terms of how much to spend, where to spend and how it’s going to be paid for. The next few weeks will be spent hammering out a plan that can go to the governor for review and potential signature.

There have been a few misconceptions regarding the budget that I wanted to address in this column. Funding for all services remains in place at current levels and school funding is intact until Oct. 1, which marks the beginning of the new fiscal year.

There has also been concern regarding our previously passed K-12 budget and how it pertains to specific programs or services offered by school districts. Our K-12 budget invests $21.9 billion in schools, which is more than the Senate or governor’s respective plans. The House’s K-12 plan increases per-pupil funding by 20% and moves away from Lansing’s one-size-fits-all mandates by loosening restrictions on how schools can use the funding.

This flexibility will allow school districts to meet their unique needs and use these additional resources to continue school lunch offerings for students, provide better transportation options or new textbooks, establish before and after school programs, and more based on what they choose to do.

The state budget process is lengthy and meticulous for a reason. As legislators, it is imperative that we protect people’s paychecks and serve as good stewards for state dollars instead of spending them frivolously. I will continue to respect these principles as our state budget plan moves forward in the days and weeks ahead.