Jennifer Flood, the State Budget Director, has released the FY 2026/27 Executive Budget Book. Health care funding appears to be little changed from last year's budget, probably due to the demise of the Trifecta:
https://www.michigan.gov/budget/budget-documents/executive-budget-and-associated-documents
https://mml.org/inside208/2025/02/05/governor-whitmer-proposes-2026-state-budget/
Governor Whitmer Proposes 2026 State Budget
Posted on February 5, 2025 by John LaMacchiaGovernor Whitmer presented her budget recommendation for fiscal year 2026. The budget proposal totals $83.5 billion, including a general fund total of $15.3 billion and a school aid budget totaling $21.2 billion. The budget also includes $34.8 billion in federal funds, representing 41.7% of the total budget for FY26.
The budget presentation focused on six key areas.
- Lowering Cost
- Creating Jobs
- Getting SMART on Education
- Supporting Seniors
- Protecting and Defending Michiganders
- Making Government Work Better
There are a few items to highlight for local government, but with covid-era dollars coming to an end, there are fewer one-time investment than previous years.
- 4% ongoing increase in statutory revenue sharing totaling $22.7 million
- $25.7 million increase in constitutional revenue sharing
- $75 million for a Public Safety Trust Fund to address violent crime prevention
- $80 million to protect clean drinking water, including grants and low-interest loans to local communities to replace lead service lines, install stormwater management systems, and upgrade water infrastructure
- $25 million to expand the existing employer assisted housing pilot program—leveraging investments from employers to fund a range of affordable housing projects
- $3 million to support rural communities through rural prosperity grants and expansion of the Rural Development Grant Program
- $10 million to grow Michigan’s population by retaining and attracting talent with strategic pilots and public engagement efforts, supporting a successful program to reverse population growth trends
There has been a lot of talk lately about finding a long-term funding solution for our transportation system. The Governor’s proposed budget includes the following investments.
- $4.9 billion in total road funding, including federal, state and restricted funds.
- $112.2 million in general fund dollars to ensure Michigan matches all $1.8 billion in federal highway aid
- $98.9 million in new revenue to improve state and local roads, highways, and bridges across the state
- $767 million in total ongoing support for transit and rail programs
- $7.8 million to fund a study and pilot program of potential road usage charge options
- $10 million to install electric vehicle charging stations across the state
- This proposal only includes new revenue generated from an increase in collections from gas tax and registration fees. During the presentation it was stated that the Governor will be announcing a new transportation funding proposal next week. We will be tracking that closely and provide details when it is announced.
A copy of the budget presentation can be found here.
A detailed breakdown of the budget and briefing papers can be found here.
It is important to remember that this is just the first step in the process. In the coming weeks, both the House and Senate will begin to work on their own budgets, and they will likely look very different than what the Governor has proposed. In May, the next consensus revenue estimating conference with take place, and those fiscal projections will inform the final negotiations between the Governor, Seante, and House. In past years, the budget has been completed by June 30, but with split power, the final budget may not be complete until the constitutional deadline of September 30.
John LaMacchia is the Michigan Municipal League’s director of state & federal affairs. He can be reached at jlamacchia@mml.org or 517-908-0303.
Where's Gretchen? Kaitlyn Buss of the Detroit News notes that Gov. Whitmer was nowhere to be found during the release of the FY 2026/27 Executive Budget:
Whitmer's still missing
By Kaitlyn Buss - February 6, 2026At this point it would be newsier if Gov. Gretchen Whitmer actually showed up to work in Lansing than it is that she does not.
Michigan’s problems are too big for its governor to be in the check-out lane, Buss writes.
Her avoidance of the public and the press has become commonplace since the November 2024 election when she stopped working to either get on or elect a Democratic presidential ticket.But Michigan’s problems are too big for its governor to be in the check-out lane.
If Whitmer does care about the challenges facing the state she still governs, she has repeatedly failed to show it.
State Budget Director Jen Flood speaks with others before she presents Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s proposed 2026 fiscal year budget to a joint session of the House and Senate appropriations committees in the state Capitol’s Heritage Hall
Rather than be present and answer questions at her own budget presentation Wednesday morning, the governor dropped the details of an $84 billion spending plan remotely on lawmakers and sent along her budget director, Jen Flood, to answer questions.Whitmer was enjoying a more celebratory environment, attending a Michigan Reconnect graduation, in Grand Rapids.
She clearly wanted to avoid accountability from Republicans and the press for proposing a record-high spending plan that offers almost no solutions except more spending and new taxes. It glosses over failing schools, bad roads and population stagnation.
Whitmer should have been at the Capitol. She is still the state’s chief executive officer, however uninterested she is in that role. It's a job that requires in-person leadership, interactions with the Legislature and explanations about where taxpayer money will be spent.
Every budget presentation since 2002 has been followed by an opportunity for reporters to ask questions of the governors themselves, according to Gongwer.
Yet Whitmer couldn’t show up to perform this one basic task?
It's a show of disrespect for the governing process, and for the Legislature, which now has a House controlled by Republicans.
Lawmakers have seven months to finalize the state budget — though ideally it should be done in June. Meanwhile, the governor has delayed her State of the State address until an unusually late Feb. 26.
In what has become typical fashion, she issued a string of social media videos about the budget — full of props and condescendingly short on details — in lieu of her physical presence.
Her abdication of leadership is also an insult to her own party, which has been in disarray and ignored by her since Democrats suffered losses in the fall election.
Since then, Whitmer has been AWOL, with the exception of a 20-minute speech at the Detroit Auto Show in early January.
By contrast, Republican Speaker of the House Matt Hall, R-Richland Township, gave a more than hour-long press briefing Thursday, addressing everything from roads, taxes and the budget to the lawsuit against him from Senate Democrats and a new transparency plan.
Democratic Secretary of State and gubernatorial candidate Jocelyn Benson is seemingly distancing herself from Whitmer's absence, perhaps rightly deducing that the governor's neglect hurts her own chances in 2026.
"Leadership isn't about words — it's about action," Benson wrote on X Thursday morning. "It's about showing up."
Whitmer isn't showing up for the people of Michigan, who are still paying her salary. She spent long stretches outside the state in 2024 campaigning for Democrats and promoting her book and is continuing the pattern of absentee governing this year.
Meanwhile, Michigan stagnates without an engaged, effective leader.
Whitmer’s overtures to bipartisanship and the "road ahead" will continue to fall flat, along with her legacy, while she ignores the job she was elected to do.
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