State Rep. Al Pscholka, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, agrees with criticism that Lansing must do something about roads, but insists lawmakers have a very small amount of money available to pay for it.
Pscholka (R-Stevensville) was the guest of State Rep. Ken Yonker Thursday evening at Wayland High School for a presentation on the state budget. Both legislators serve on the Appropriations Committee, which works on the budget every year.
The guest lawmaker said, “The question I am often asked is, ‘Why can’t you clowns in Lansing find 2% of a $53.5 billion budget to fix our roads?”
Pscholka said most of the budget is tied up for expenses such as Medicaid, food stamps, human services, state police, debt service, the environment and many other funds and he figures only $6.3 billion is left in what most would call “discretionary spending.”
Of that figure, the biggest yearly expense is corrections, to the tune of $1.9 billion, with education coming in second at $1.4 billion.
He said Michigan has about 43,000 people in prison, which is down 9,000 from about a decade ago. There are 31 prisons, one exclusively for women and near capacity.
Pscholka said cutting back on prison spending is an option under discussion in Lansing.
But health and human services takes up $4.12 billion in annual expenditures.
He said the State House found about $400 million to try to fix roads, which though inadequate, is more than in recent years.
“(The state’s) discretionary funds have gone down slightly and sales tax revenue has been declining slightly,” he said, noting that this is bad news for K-12 schools, which rely heavily on the 2% increase from Proposal A.
Revenue from the gasoline tax to help fund roads has declined, largely because of decreases in gas prices and more prevalent uses of hybrid and fuel efficient vehicles, which now are facing higher fees because they use the roads as much as everybody else.
However, income tax revenue has been increasing.
“That tells me that more people are saving money,” Pscholka said.
Michigan spending growth now is the second lowest in the nation, the number of state employees is down from 60,000 in 2001 to 44,000 this year.
Pscholka said since he and Yonker joined the State Legislature in 2011, Michigan’s financial picture has improved radically. In January 2011 the state had a fund balance of only about $615 million, now it’s up to $2 billion. Its credit rating has improved and it’s No. 1 in the country in reduction of debt.
“That’s not a very sexy topic,” he quipped.
But the picture he painted was that though the state has done a terrific job in being frugal, there isn’t a lot of money that can be appropriated without raising taxes or making more cuts.
Gov. Rick Snyder a couple of years ago brought the issue of roads before the House and Senate and even suggested a tax increase to get lawmakers talking about what to do. Since legislators declined to raise taxes, Snyder then challenged them to do something. Unfortunately, no agreement has been reached since, even though both legislative chambers are heavily Republican and the governor is a member of the GOP.
If the State Legislature is left with cutting only to find the money, Pscholka said probably it would result in a reduction of $200 million in the state aid fund and a 10% to 20% decrease in all departments in order to find $1.3 billion to fund roads.
“What I’m hearing from the public now is, ‘why don’t you guys just do something for roads and don’t tie it to anything else (like the ballot proposition that failed miserably earlier this year).”
Though corrections funding is targeted for cutbacks, Pscholka said it’s a myth that prisons are full of non-violent potheads who easily could be released.
“We don’t put people in prison for smoking weed,” he said. “If you’re in prison, you had to do something bad… We can’t just lock up people, throw away the key and not pay a lot of money for it.”
However, he acknowledged Michigan inmates serve four to five years longer than those in neighboring states.
Some local officials in the audience said they’d hate to see the state cut back on revenue sharing for townships, counties, villages and cities.
Mark DeYoung, Allegan County Commission Chairman, said, “If we lost revenue sharing, it would turn us on our back.”
Russ Slater of Kentwood said the state should invest more in agribusiness and the environment.
“I’m stunned at how much opportunity there is in green and blue industries,” he said. “They’re gems that we have forgotten.”
Slater acknowledged that funding roads is an important part of that effort.
Nonetheless, Yonker insisted, the state is in better financial shape than it’s been in a couple of decades.
“For the first time in 15 years the state’s unemployment rate is below the national average,” he pointed out.
PHOTO: State Reps. Al Pscholka (left) and Ken Yonker speak to a sparse crowd of about a dozen in what Pscholka acknowledged is “not a sexy topic” — the state budget.
