State Rep. Ben Frederick today voted to reverse the governor’s cuts to initiatives helping the state’s most vulnerable residents – ending a budget impasse.

Frederick, of Owosso, joined the Legislature in restoring funding to public safety, education, veterans’ services and several other programs. Two measures sponsored by Frederick – restoring $100,000 for the Autism Train the Trainer program and $350,000 for a new autism intervention program called the PLAY Project – were also incorporated into the final plan.

The plan will soon head to Gov. Whitmer for her signature, reversing many of the cuts she made at the start of the budget year that began Oct. 1.

“We’re coming together to restore funding to programs people in our community rely on every day – things like school safety grants, veterans’ services and local law enforcement,” Frederick said. “While this is all funding that should never have been cut in the first place, I’m glad we are setting things straight and doing the right thing for the people of Michigan.”

The plan approved today restores support for:

• Public safety. The plan reverses the governor’s $13 million in cuts to the program allowing sheriffs to hire patrols for secondary roads and $15 million for a statewide fund that reimburses county jails for holding state prisoners. The measure also restores $10 million Whitmer eliminated for school safety grants.
• Education. The House vote would restore funding for transportation in isolated school districts, dropout recovery programs and literacy programs. The Michigan Tuition Grant program – which helps nearly 17,000 college students statewide, including hundreds at Baker College – will be funded.
• Health care. The 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 roughly $2 million statewide to fight opioid drug abuse.
• Veterans. The plan would restore grants Whitmer vetoed to ensure military veterans can get access to services they need at the county level.

###