We've posted a media report with project development details under "Local."

Here's the link.

https://mihealthfreedom.org/community/county-health-departments/flint-offers-new-mothers-7500-during-the-first-year/#post-891

The Flint Rx Kids guaranteed basic income program is expanding to other locales with the dedication of federal TANF funds in the new FY 2025 Michigan budget:

https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2024/07/06/cash-program-moms-babies-michigan-child-tax-credit-universal-basic-guaranteed-income/74279675007/

Program providing $7,500 for Flint moms and babies expected to expand across Michigan
Nushrat Rahman - July 6, 2024

A program on a mission to eliminate deep infant poverty by giving cash payments to pregnant moms and babies in Flint is expected to expand to cities across Michigan.

Rx Kids, regarded by officials as a first-of-its-kind initiative in the country, provides moms with $1,500 mid-pregnancy for essentials like food, prenatal care, cribs or other needs. Then, after birth, families get $500 a month for the first year of the infant's life, for $7,500 in total. The no-strings attached program, which does not have income restrictions for eligibility, launched in January.

Now, thanks to $20 million in a recently approved state budget, the program is tentatively slated to grow beyond Flint to five counties in the eastern Upper Peninsula, including Alger, Chippewa, Luce, Mackinac and Schoolcraft; the cities of Kalamazoo, Saginaw, Dearborn, Highland Park, River Rouge and parts of Detroit. The budget was sent to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who is expected to sign it, the Free Press reported last week.

If Rx Kids is able to raise the needed philanthropic dollars, programs could go live in other cities as early as January.

"Rx Kids is a prescription for health, hope and opportunity," said Dr. Mona Hanna, director of Rx Kids and associate dean of public health at the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine. Hanna, a pediatrician who spotted high lead levels among children in Flint and was among the key people to expose the water crisis, said she had wished for a "prescription" to take away poverty for her patients.

In Flint, where nearly 78% of children under 5 live in poverty, Rx Kids has so far distributed more than $2 million in cash to 828 families. About 60% of the families have an annual household income of less than $10,000, Hanna said. With the dollars in hand, families are able to pay their rent, utilities, food and diapers. They can put the money into savings.

"This is generational, historic work," she said.

Cash can alleviate poverty

There's evidence that cash benefits for children can lift them out of poverty.

Rx Kids co-director H. Luke Shaefer pointed to the pandemic-era expanded Child Tax Credit, which provided $250 to $300 per month for each eligible child. The payments reached more than 61 million children and nearly cut child poverty in half in 2021, compared with the year before, according to Columbia University's Center on Poverty and Social Policy. After the benefits ended, child poverty rose sharply in 2022. January of that year saw 3.7 million more kids in poverty compared with December 2021.

"For that brief, shining moment, we lifted millions of children out of poverty. We saw food hardship among families with children fall to the lowest level that we've ever recorded. We saw the credit scores of families hit their all-time high," Shaefer, who is a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan and director of the Poverty Solutions initiative, said. "And then we reversed course and weren't able to extend that past the one year and we saw child poverty spike — the highest one-year increase in history. We saw food hardship increase and just the financial security of families doing worse."

Shaefer said Rx Kids, a child cash benefits initiative, falls within the same family of programs as universal basic income, recurring cash payments that are not targeted, and guaranteed basic income, which provide no-strings-attached cash payments that are often geared toward people with the greatest needs. The latter two are largely untested, he said, but multiple countries have some type of child cash transfer program.

"Investments in children pay dividends over the long term. Also, families with children are often sort of the most economically vulnerable," Shaefer said.

Program to expand but needs philanthropic funds
Lawmakers approved $20 million in funding from the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program for Rx Kids.

The five-year Flint program relies on a combination of public dollars, including TANF, alongside philanthropic contributions, from funders like Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. The program is slated to expand to other parts of the state, but organizers need philanthropic matches to make it available to moms in those municipalities, regardless of their income.

"There's a private part that is necessary," Hanna said. "We will not launch this only for low-income people. It must be a universal program."

Dearborn, for instance, would get about $3 million in state TANF funding that could support the first four cash payments for lower income families. To extend to the full 12 months and to make it open for all moms and babies in a given area — like the Flint program — Rx Kids would need to raise another $9.5 million. An alternative option would be to make it a perinatal program — providing the first four payments for families regardless of income. The perinatal version of the program would require nearly $2 million for Dearborn.

In the case of Detroit, of the $20 million allocation, the city would get about $10 million in TANF, Hanna said, covering about 3,000 babies a year. To make it similar to the one in Flint, Rx Kids needs to raise an additional $32 million but $7 million to launch a perinatal program. For Detroit, Rx Kids will be looking at areas of greatest need, likely based on highest poverty rates by ZIP code. A spokesperson for the Detroit Health Department said it is not involved with the Rx Kids program at this time.

About 49% of children under the age of 5 in Detroit live below the poverty line, according to 2022 Census estimates. In River Rouge, the child poverty rate is nearly 68%.

In Wayne County, 52% of households in 2022 earned more than the federal poverty level but still struggled to make ends meet. In other words, they fall within the United Way's ALICE threshold, meaning they aren't technically living in poverty but don't earn enough to afford the basics where they reside.

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, director of Wayne County’s Department of Health, Human, and Veterans Services, said the county is eager to make the program a reality.

"Stable housing or good healthy food or a safe living environment or transit opportunities — addressing those issues are critical to giving every child that best first start at their life," El-Sayed said. "And so, when you think about what it is that the government and philanthropy, even society, can do to make sure that everybody has an equal shot at a dignified life, it's making sure that, at that transition of life, that the resources that people need are available, and cash is the single best way to do that."

Ali Abazeed, founding director of the Dearborn Department of Public Health, said there's no better intervention than investing in the period before and after pregnancy. He pointed to how the birth of a child increases the risk of poverty, especially for first-time mothers.

"Giving people cash — especially when they're dealing with this thing that causes a spike in poverty, both before and after the birth of the child — that's redefining the social contract, that's redefining what we do for one another, that's redefining how we support one another and our residents," Abazeed said.

Abazeed said the city plans to allocate $1 million in federal funding to the program, and is talking to local and state partners for further investments.

"We have quite the lift ahead of us," he said, but is confident the program will launch for Dearborn residents.

Over on the southwest side of the state, the Kalamazoo Community Foundation has committed $500,000 so far and is pursuing local government and philanthropic funds for a full 12-month program. Exploring an Rx Kids initiative is among the top priorities for the Kalamazoo City Commission as part of the city's 2025 budget, but funding has not yet been determined, according to a spokesperson for the city of Kalamazoo.

"Rx Kids will ensure that our newborn residents are born into a thriving community, where their family's income level does not adversely impact their life's trajectory,” Grace Lubwama, CEO of the Kalamazoo Community Foundation, said in a statement.

Rx Kids is exploring what the program could look like outside of Michigan, too. Hanna said there is interest in both red and blue states that have unspent TANF dollars.

"We started this in Flint, but the intent was never to end in Flint," Hanna said.

I have to admit, it's both more honest and more efficient than channeling funds that target urban dwellers through Medicaid and other state assistance programs.

Always assuming the goal is to selectively fund a certain type of voter, instead of extending equal rule of law.

Morning Brew reports Sam Altman's failed experiment, eerily similar to this one.

https://www.morningbrew.com/daily/stories/2024/07/23/here-s-what-happened-when-sam-altman-gave-people-free-cash

Here’s what happened when Sam Altman gave people free cash

An OpenAI-backed organization has released the findings from a universal basic income pilot program.

By Cassandra Cassidy     |    JULY 23, 2024    |    LESS THAN 3 MIN READ

 

Cash provides people with a lot of flexibility—that’s one of the main takeaways from the Wu-Tang Clan classic “C.R.E.A.M.” and from a $60 million study of universal basic income (UBI) backed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

The AI cheerleader has been a proponent of UBI for years, fueled by his belief that AI will eventually eliminate traditional jobs, and he put his money behind it, partially funding the largest US basic income pilot program ever. The findings are now trickling in.

How it worked: The program enrolled 3,000 people across Texas and Illinois with an income below $28,000. From November 2020 to October 2023, a third of the participants received $1,000 a month for three years (the rest received $50 a month for three years).

For those who got $1,000, the study found:

• They spent $310 more per month on average, mostly on rent, transportation, and food.
• On average, people worked 1.3 hours less per week.
• Recipients went to hospitals, doctors, and dentists more often.

But…researchers said there was no direct evidence of improved physical and mental health. While stress and food insecurity reduced for the first year, it leveled out in the second and third years, and participants’ long-term financial position stayed the same.—CC

The Michigan House impounded all unspent FY 2025 funds, preventing their carry over into FY 2026 as "work projects".  Dr. Mona Hanna is freaking out over the effect on RxKids, despite $ 270 million in fresh funding:

https://bridgemi.com/michigan-government/rxkids-in-limbo-flint-reeling-over-surprise-cuts-by-house-republicans/

RxKids ‘in limbo,’ Flint reeling over surprise cuts by House Republicans
By Jordyn Hermani and Simon D. Schuster - December 11, 2025

• Plans to expand a cash assistance program for moms ‘in limbo’ after Michigan House cuts, pediatrician says
• House Republicans unilaterally voted Wednesday to cancel nearly $650 million in previously approved spending
• Other cuts include more than $6.6 million for Flint’s recovery from the city’s 2014 water contamination crisis

LANSING — On Wednesday morning, Dr. Mona Hanna contacted Michigan House Speaker Matt Hall’s office with an invitation, she said: Join her at a January event to announce the expansion of a first-in-the-nation program that gives cash to new and expecting mothers, known as RxKids.

She also wondered if Hall, a Richland Township Republican, had any interest in being part of the press release, too.

But that afternoon, Hanna received an unexpected response, albeit indirectly: House Republicans had abruptly canceled previously approved funding for the bipartisan program. Just like that, nearly $18.5 million meant for pregnant moms and babies in more than a dozen communities was gone.

“The money they have cut is the money we are using, right now, for vital support for Michigan families,” Hanna told Bridge Michigan, saying the program that started in Flint is now “in limbo” as staff works to understand whether the funding cut will impact expansion plans.

While RxKids is slated to receive another $270 million in state funding over the coming year, program organizers are grappling with the loss of more immediate money that they had been expecting. “I don’t know what this means right now,” Hanna told Bridge, “but it’s not good news.”

The $18.5 million cut to RxKids was a small part of about $645 million in previously approved spending canceled by Republicans during a Wednesday House Appropriations Committee meeting that lasted less than five minutes, blindsiding intended recipients and enraging Democrats.

Other canceled spending included $159 million for an economic development program championed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to secure federal funding, along with $6.7 million for Flint water crisis recovery, $56,600 to provide wigs to Michiganders undergoing cancer treatment and $2.5 million for a pilot study on traffic cameras in school zones.

Hall defended the House action as a means to “force a discussion about what is the best way to get value for your tax dollars” rather than simply allow the Whitmer administration to carry the funds over to the new fiscal year as work projects, which had been routine practice in past years.

He and House Appropriations Committee Chair Ann Bollin, R-Brighton, argued state departments have been “squirreling away” funding into what they referred to as “slush funds.” Their goal, Hall said, was to identify and eliminate “waste, fraud and abuse” in state government.

A day later, state department heads were still trying to figure out the impact of the unexpected spending cuts, many deferring comment to the State Budget Office, which has said the move will have “negative consequences for Michigan families, businesses and our state’s economy.”

Whitmer’s office argued the GOP moves will “kill jobs and raise costs for Michigan families—just days before the Christmas holiday.”

“Even Ebenezer Scrooge wouldn’t dream of such cruel cuts, like eliminating support for students in Flint impacted by the water crisis and survivors of child sexual assault,” spokesperson Stacey LaRouche said in a statement.

“Our administration will continue to review the full impact of these cuts, but Michiganders deserve to know who is responsible: Matt Hall and his caucus.”

Nearly $650 million in cuts

Michigan House Republicans late Wednesday made the unique and unilateral move to deny nearly $645 million in funding to varying work projects across numerous state departments.

The budget committee leveraged a rarely-used provision in the management and budget act that allowed them to deny requests from the State Budget Office — which is controlled by Whitmer — to extend unspent money appropriated in the prior fiscal year into the future by converting the items into a “work project.”

The requests are automatically approved if the Legislature takes no action, but either chamber can block them without the other’s approval, sending the unsent cash back to the funding pots it came from.

Republicans celebrated the cancellation of more than $102 million for 163 separate “community enhancement” earmarks that had been approved in 2023 when Democrats controlled both chambers of the Legislature.

Similar grants have drawn criticism, controversy and even criminal charges in recent years, but cutting money for the ones Republicans saw as problematic meant killing the projects they favored, too.

“Not everything that the Appropriations Committee cut was waste, fraud and abuse,” Hall conceded Wednesday. Bollin, too, acknowledged that the cuts could hit some “very good projects.”

House Republicans could agree to resume some of the funding, Hall said, but they want a chance to review past allocations and force Democrats back to the negotiating table.

Republican legislative leaders emphasized they’d prefer all earmarks to be subject to a new, more transparent process they had pushed to implement earlier this year, though they still tacitly approved the bulk of the several billion dollars in work project requests regardless.

Still, none of that is expected to happen before 2026 and the next spending bill, which is likely to be weeks or even months away.

Rep. Jim DeSana, a Carleton Republican on the committee, said he saw Wednesday’s vote as about “reclaiming the process.”

“We’re in the majority now. They negotiated this with (former Democratic House Speaker) Joe Tate. They didn’t negotiate it with the House Republicans,” he said.

If Democrats had been in the same position House Republicans are now, “I would fully expect that they would have” employed a similar tactic, DeSana added.

DeSana told Bridge the cuts were intended to send an anti-pork message — that state budgets shouldn’t be used to fund individual projects — though he himself had requested funding for a baseball facility in his district earlier this year.

“Why should my taxpayers in Taylor pay for a mental health clinic in Muskegon,” DeSana said. “If it’s something that’s worth funding, it either should be funded to every county and it shouldn’t be done in special projects.”

Flint cuts

House Republicans canceled nearly $6.7 million in planned spending for Flint in the wake of that city’s water crisis, which began in 2014. About $1.6 million in funding for community health services was eliminated, along with $5 million to fund education support for children in Flint schools who could have been impacted by lead in that city’s drinking water.

“The Flint drinking water emergency is over,” Hall said Wednesday, referencing the federal government’s May decision to formally lift a declared emergency in the city. “Even Governor Whitmer has acknowledged that, but yet they continue to want to fund it and squirrel away money for it. That isn’t happening.”

Democrats took exception to the comments — and the cuts — for Flint.

“Although they say that the water crisis is over, we still have kids that are still dealing with that, so we still need that money to help those kids that got affected 10 years ago,” said state Rep. Cynthia Neeley, D-Flint, who is married to the city’s mayor. “So for our speaker to say that we no longer need the money is untrue.”

‘I owe (the builders) money’

In Muskegon, the Lakeshore Museum Center had used the first part of a $2 million state grant to restore the roofs of three historic Queen Anne structures which are now local museums.

They were in the process of restoring the homes’ intricate Victorian-era porches when they learned their remaining $1.2 million had been cut when House Republicans canceled $15.8 million in community museum grants.

Local builders are producing the ornate wood beams, but Melissa Horton, the museum’s executive director, doesn’t know what will come next.

“I owe (the builders) money, and I don’t know that I have the money to pay them,” she told Bridge. “I don’t know where I’m going to get the funding.”

Rep. Will Snyder, a Democrat who represents Muskegon in the House, called the vote “one of the most corrupt abuses of power and unprecedented displays of cruelty that I’ve ever seen” in state government.

Horton said she made a contract with the builders “in good faith” because “I never in a million years would have thought that the state would have defaulted on their contract with us.”

Other institutions may have fared better, however.

Three symphony orchestras in Lansing, Flint and Grand Rapids who received a combined $1.6 million in last year’s budget to subsidize their operations had already spent all but $5,100 of that funding — which was clawed back by House Republicans Thursday.

What’s next? ‘Everything is up in the air’

When contacted Thursday, an overwhelming majority of state departments deferred comment to the State Budget Office as they reviewed the potential impacts of these cuts — as did Whitmer’s office.

Lauren Leeds, communications director for the State Budget Office, acknowledged in an email that her office, too, was “still reviewing and assessing the impact” of Wednesday’s votes.

Legislative Democrats responded with fury and outrage to the cuts, though they have little recourse but to push for the funding’s restoration.

They argue that, by upending funding that a host of partners had assumed could be counted on, the state government is showing itself to be an unreliable partner.

Sen. Sarah Anthony, a Lansing Democrat and chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, also lambasted the cuts. She also noted that Dec. 14 is the last day to cut any additional work projects.

When asked if that meant the Democratic-led Senate was considering identifying and eliminating any additional work projects in a sort of tit-for-tat move with the Republican-led House, Anthony was noncommittal.

“That’s the purview of this (Appropriations) committee, and that’s what we’re looking at,” Anthony told Bridge. “Everything is up in the air right now.”

Ben Solis of Michigan Advance struggles with elementary school mathematics:

https://michiganadvance.com/2025/12/12/trust-cuts-both-ways-nonprofits-say-michigan-house-gop-cuts-risk-harming-vulnerable-families/

‘Trust cuts both ways’: Nonprofits say Michigan House GOP cuts risk harming vulnerable families
By Ben Solis - December 12, 2025

The abrupt cuts approved Wednesday to state agency work project spending have been called everything from cruel to wholly unorthodox, but for the organizations that would have relied on the slashed $645 million in negotiated funding to fulfill vital services for Michigan residents, the move feels like an outright devaluation of their work.

One of those organizations is the Lansing-based Small Talk Children’s Advocacy Center, a nonprofit that helps children receive coordinated services during child sexual and violent abuse investigations across mid-Michigan. Their work includes offering no-cost therapy services for children to address the trauma they’ve experienced, as well as adult prevention education and other programs.

In an interview with Michigan Advance, Alex Brace, the organization’s executive director, news of the slashed funding brought confusion, distrust and a feeling like their important work didn’t matter to a select set of leaders in the state Legislature.

“There was a time when organizations like ours did not exist and weren’t here to serve kids who needed help when they have been exposed to sexual and physical violence,” Brace said. “To know that this is being cast aside is quite frustrating, to say the least. … I feel like there was a devaluing of the work that we do, that we know is critical and incredibly important to our community and to the children that we serve.”

GOP members of the House Appropriations Committee, who control the majority, voted along party lines to employ a little-used provision in the Management and Budget Act that allows either House or Senate appropriators to disapprove any newly requested work projects. The vote allowed the committee, chaired by state Rep. Ann Bollin (R-Brighton Township), to cut more than a half-billion dollars in current work project spending already approved by the Legislature for the 2025-26 fiscal year budget, which was signed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

Agency work projects have long been a target for Bollin, but especially Michigan House Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Township), who began threatening the funding early in the budget negotiations that ended in October after a temporary government shutdown.

One major point of controversy, aside from the size of the cuts and their impacts, was the fact that the House committee did not debate or hear testimony prior to voting. Members of the the House Democratic Caucus, and some members of the House Republican Caucus, spent the last few days sounding off on Hall and Bollin for pulling the rug out from pre-negotiated legislative spending and before some of the organizations could be allocated or reimbursed with the funding.

There was an open question on Thursday about whether Whitmer opposed Hall and Bollin’s actions due to the silence from the governor and her office after the vote took place on Wednesday. On late Thursday afternoon, Whitmer’s office issued a statement denouncing the cuts.

“The actions taken by House Republicans will kill jobs and raise costs for Michigan families – just days before the Christmas holiday,” Whitmer press secretary Stacey LaRouche told Gongwer News Service, a Lansing-based political newsletter. “Even Ebenezer Scrooge wouldn’t dream of such cruel cuts, like eliminating support for students in Flint impacted by the water crisis and survivors of child sexual assault.”

Yet, as Gongwer noted, Whitmer herself did not issue a direct statement. Still, the governor laid the blame at the feet of Hall and his caucus.

“In contrast, Senate Democrats are working to solve problems by passing legislation that makes it easier for workers to find jobs and for companies to invest and build in Michigan,” LaRouche said in a statement. “Our administration will continue to review the full impact of these cuts, but Michiganders deserve to know who is responsible: Matt Hall and his caucus.”

Blame notwithstanding, the sheer lack of transparency in the process to gut a half-trillion dollars in agreed upon spending and doing so to service nonprofit organizations, some of which focus on the well-being of children, was seen as an affront the legislative process and the two-way trust between government officials and their constituents.

In the case of Small Talk Children’s Advocacy Center, the organization was appropriated $1.5 million covering a period of four years, money initially planned for an expansion into a physical space that was later redetermined to be better used on staffing and maintaining programs, Brace said.

The organization had up until 2029 to spend the money, which was to be distributed as reimbursements over the life of the legislative grant.

Brace said the organization only spent up to $90,000 to $100,000 of that money before the House’s decision earlier this week.

Democrats in both chambers of the Legislature were still trying to understand if the affected organizations would be able to keep the money they already spent or if the House GOP leadership intended to initiate clawback mechanisms.

Brace said it was his understanding that the money reimbursed to them would remain, it was just the other portion of the $1.5 million that was now in jeopardy.

He also said that no one from the House Appropriations Committee contacted Small Talk Children’s Advocacy Center before pulling the plug on the funding.

Now, the organization is looking at a potential reduction of services.

“We will have to regroup, and we’ll have to really look at our budget and see what kind of things we can live without,” Brace said. “Staffing is sort of the last thing on that list. In order for us to do the quality work that we need to do for these kids, who absolutely deserve to heal from the trauma of the sexual and physical abuse, we need to have the people to do it so. Keeping them is always going to be the priority.”

What could be on the chopping block is possibly a reduction in training services and supplies, but all of those things were important to the work, as well, Brace said.

“That’s a really terrible position to be in, because all of it is essential,” Brace added. “Our budget is really tight, and it’s made so that we can give kids the absolute best quality services.”

Another organization that will feel the crunch from the cuts is the RxKids program, a service of the Michigan State University Public Health Initiative, which aims to improve the life of children and families with direct cash support during pregnancy and child infancy.

It was founded by Dr. Mona Hanna, the pediatrician and researcher who helped expose the Flint water crisis. Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks (D-Grand Rapids) was a big proponent in getting funding for RxKids during the legislative budget process earlier this year and championed the funding when it was delivered in the state budget – money that is now being slashed.

In a statement, the organization denounced the cuts, noting that the House Appropriations Committee slashed $18.5 million in funding for RxKids.

“This was not new money, it had been allocated by the Legislature and signed into law to support Rx Kids expansion to moms and babies in 19 Michigan communities,” the organization said in a news release. “We have already heard from many of you expressing deep concern, and we share the seriousness of this moment, especially this close to the holidays.”

Without the funding, RxKids said there was a significant risk of a pause in the program, or outright halting it altogether.

“In the (fiscal year 2025-26) state budget, which was just passed two months ago, Michigan made a historic bipartisan commitment to expand Rx Kids to even more families,” the organization said. “However, (the) funding is not yet available, as contracts are not in place. We are working around the clock with state leaders, budget officials, and community and philanthropic partners to understand what options remain.”

Several lawmakers on Thursday said Hall’s and Bollin’s maneuvering with work projects has and will continue to erode constituent trust in their leaders and in the institutions that serve them.

Brace said news of the cuts certainly puts that trust into question.

“To know that something that felt like about as sure a thing as possible could be ripped away is discouraging,” Brace said. “I don’t think it stops me from wanting to engage with the government. … This is and should be a nonpartisan issue; it shouldn’t be something that anybody is willing to tolerate or accept. We need our government to be partners with us on this, and that trust has to cut both ways.”

$ 645 million = $ 0.645 billion, not trillion.

AG Dana Nessel just stripped the Michigan Legislature of their power of the purse.  They cannot retrieve expired funds anymore.  Nessel's formal opinion finds MCL 18.1451a(3) is unconstitutional.  A formal opinion of the Michigan Attorney General is law, unless overturned by the courts.  Won't happen with a 6 to 1 Democratic majority on the State Supreme Court.  The $ 645 million spending party is back on:

https://www.michigan.gov/ag/news/press-releases/2026/01/07/ag-nessel-issues-formal-opinion-finding-mechanism-allowing-appropriations-committee

AG Nessel Issues Formal Opinion Finding Mechanism Allowing Appropriations Committee to Disapprove Work Projects Unconstitutional
By Danny Wimmer - January 07, 2026

LANSING – Today, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel issued a formal opinion concluding that a “disapproval” mechanism allowing one legislative committee to unilaterally terminate funding previously appropriated by the full Legislature and the Governor is unconstitutional. The opinion was requested by the Senate Appropriations Chair, Sarah Anthony, (PDF) following a December vote of the Michigan House Appropriations Committee to “disapprove” nearly $645 million in state funding that had already been enacted into law.

This disapproval mechanism, MCL 18.1451a(3), contained in the Management and Budget Act, was the subject of the Senator’s opinion request. The statute allows funding approved by the Legislature and the Governor for a prior fiscal year to continue to be used for its intended purpose for a new fiscal year. The State Budget Director, who oversees spending for the state on behalf of the executive branch, is authorized under the Management and Budget Act to approve this continued use of previously approved funding. These authorizations by the State Budget Director are called “work projects.” The same statute also authorizes either the Senate or House appropriations committee, acting alone, to disapprove those work projects.

The Attorney General concluded in her opinion that this disapproval mechanism violates both the Separation of Powers and Bicameralism and Presentment requirements in the Michigan Constitution. The Separation of Powers requirement limits the ability of one branch of government to exercise the functions of another. The presentment and bicameralism requirements reflect the constitutional mandate that laws must be debated and passed by both houses of the Legislature and presented to and signed by the Governor. The full opinion from Attorney General Nessel may be read here (PDF).

Attorney General Nessel found the disapproval mechanism allowing either appropriations committee to disapprove work projects amounts to an unconstitutional violation of the separation of powers because it impermissibly allows a single legislative committee to exert control over the executive’s implementation of enacted laws. The Attorney General further determined that this constituted a violation of the Constitution’s bicameralism and presentment requirements because the committee veto doesn’t comply with the constitutional requirement that legislative action be approved by both Legislative chambers and presented to the Governor, except in only certain narrow and explicit circumstances expressly identified within the Constitution itself.

“By empowering a single legislative committee to negate the State Budget Director’s work-project designations, the statute reserves the very administrative control that the separation of powers forbids,” wrote Nessel in her opinion. “This disapproval mechanism effectively creates a ‘legislative veto’—or, more accurately, a ‘legislative committee veto.’ This comprises an unconstitutional reservation of administrative control that interferes with the executive branch’s core function of executing the laws. Under Article 3, § 2, when an appropriation is enacted, the Legislature’s role ends, and the executive branch’s duty to faithfully execute the law begins.”

Attorney General Nessel went on to conclude that the unconstitutional legislative committee veto disapproval mechanism is severable from the rest of MCL 18.1451a. Therefore, the remaining portions of the statute pertaining to work projects, including the Director’s authority to designate work projects, temporal limits, substantive criteria, and reporting requirements, remain intact and enforceable.

A video from Attorney General Nessel discussing the opinion can be found here and is available for public use.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4rWote_7Wg

Michigan Court of Claims Judge Michael Gadola did not issue a temporary restraining order on behalf of the Michigan House today, but will  issue a ruling next week on the $ 645 million impoundment of unspent FY 2025 funds:

https://www.woodtv.com/news/michigan/judge-to-decide-on-state-funding-clawback-injunction-next-week/

Judge to decide next week on state funding clawback injunction
By Rachel Van Gilder - January 16, 2026

LANSING, Mich. (WOOD) — A judge is expected to decide next week whether to tell state agencies to stop spending money clawed back by the Republican-led Michigan House of Representatives as a lawsuit moves forward, with the exact dollar amount in limbo now unclear.

Michigan Court of Claims Judge Michael Gadola said at the end of a Friday morning hearing in Lansing that he would not issue a temporary restraining order, but said he intended to issue a written ruling in the middle of next week on the House’s request for a preliminary injunction against the agencies.

“Of course, the lawsuit will proceed apace independent of whatever decision I make on that front,” Gadola said.

The Republican-led House Appropriations Committee voted Dec. 10 to disapprove — that is, reclaim to the general fund — about $645 million that had already been appropriated for various agencies and projects and subsequently labeled by the State Budget Office as work project funding. Last week, Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, issued an opinion arguing the provision of the 1984 law that facilitated the clawback violates the Michigan Constitution. Citing that opinion, the SBO told department heads to start paying out the money.

The House, led by Republican Speaker Matt Hall of Richland, soon sued 31 department heads and those department heads filed their initial response to the suit Wednesday. Attorneys laid out their arguments in person before Gadola Friday. Those arguments have many prongs, but essentially, the two sides are arguing over the constitutionality of the provision and the SBO’s direction to spend the money after the clawback vote.

Gadola indicated he thought the House’s strongest argument was that regardless of whether the provision is unconstitutional, it may not simply be ignored because removing the provision raises even more questions about the full law.

HOW MUCH IS AT STAKE?

It also became apparent during the hearing that the exact amount of money that should or may be clawed back is unclear.

The attorney for the majority of the department heads indicated more than half of the $645 million had already been “encumbered” — contracted for a specific purpose — before the end of the fiscal year and, therefore, before the Dec. 10 vote.

“Why, then, was a work project account sought for these funds if they had been encumbered within the deadline set by the statute?” Gadola wondered.

“As far as I understand it, the process for going through all the work to make these work project designations and submitting them to the legislative committees requires a lot of time and information: time from the departments to submit them to the SBO, time for the SBO to review it and make the designations. To avoid the possibility of only requesting a designation as to the unencumbered balances, which will change up … as a matter of making sure any funds aren’t missed out, the State Budget Office identifies the entirety of the balance as opposed to trying to scalpel it,” Michigan Assistant Attorney General Adam de Bear said.

There seemed to be agreement from all sides that dollars encumbered before the end of the fiscal year could not be clawed back.

“If they properly encumbered the funds before Sept. 30, they’re not work project appropriations. Those funds are encumbered. They already happened. So yes, we would be looking at the remaining portion of the work project designations that were unencumbered on Sept. 30,” Sean Dutton, the attorney representing the House, said.

Gadola also wanted to know why de Bear had not told the department heads to freeze unencumbered spending because of the lawsuit. De Bear replied that no such court order had been made. He also indicated that there had not been a rush to spend the money.

The attorney for the Michigan Economic Development Corporation noted that while the vast majority of that agency’s dollars involved in the dispute were encumbered before the disapproval, it has frozen all of the remaining money amid the legal battle.

Judge Gadola recognized the inanity of his earlier decision and has frozen spending of the $ 645 million at issue here:

https://www.michigannewssource.com/2026/01/judge-halts-645m-in-state-spending-as-house-gop-wins-key-court-ruling-over-ag-nessel/

Judge Halts $645M in State Spending as House GOP Wins Key Court Ruling Over AG Nessel
By Katie Heid - January 16, 2026

LANSING, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – A simmering budget fight between Michigan House Republicans and Attorney General Dana Nessel boiled over on Friday when a judge ordered the Whitmer administration to halt $645 million in state spending.

Michigan Court of Claims Judge Michael F. Gadola directed all state departments to immediately stop spending the disputed tax dollars for so-called “work projects” that the House denied last month.

In his decision, Gadola said the Republican-led House is “likely to succeed” on the merits of its lawsuit and would face “irreparable harm” if state agencies were allowed to continue spending money lawmakers had ordered rescinded.

House Speaker Matt Hall quickly declared victory. “I’ve said all along that we were going to win this easily, because any fair court would rule in the House Republicans’ favor,” Hall said in a statement released Friday afternoon. “While ultimate Lansing insiders and Senate Democrats are desperate to protect their pork spending, House Republicans are fighting for hardworking taxpayers. This ruling has stopped Dana Nessel’s bogus legal opinion in its tracks, forcing the Whitmer administration to stop illegally spending their slush fund dollars.”

The injunction comes just days after Nessel issued a formal opinion citing the law that House Republicans relied on to claw back the funding is unconstitutional. In addition, she argued lawmakers overstepped their authority.

A report posted by Bridge Magazine provides more detail on Judge Gadola's reversal.  The State used AG Nessel's opinion as cover to "encumber" the vast majority of the $ 645 million at issue.  It is entirely possible, though, that our state's devious bureaucrats are engaging in a deception:

https://bridgemi.com/michigan-government/state-michigan-already-committed-most-of-645m-gop-tried-to-cut/

Judge: Freeze funding cut by House GOP. Michigan: Most of it already committed
By Simon D. Schuster - January 16, 2026

• Most of $645 million in state funding at the center of House Republican lawsuit can’t be canceled anyway, an attorney said Friday in court
• GOP-led House committee last month blocked a funding extension request, a vote Attorney General Dana Nessel deemed unconstitutional
• A Court of Claims judge said he’ll rule next week whether to freeze the funds while the suit plays out

LANSING — A state judge on Friday froze millions of dollars in state spending as Michigan’s Republican-led House and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration wrestle over who can decide the fate of the funds.

The Michigan House Appropriations Committee in December voted to block $645 million in funding the administration had sought to extend. This month, the House sued state departments preparing to resume the spending after Attorney General Dana Nessel deemed unconstitutional the rarely-used provision in state law the committee had leveraged.

But during oral arguments held Friday in the Michigan Court of Claims, a state attorney said the administration had already committed to spending most of the $645 million in question.

“Approximately 70%” of the funding the State Budget Office had requested to extend for four more years had already been “encumbered” ahead of the House committee vote to send the money back to the state’s general fund, assistant attorney general Adam de Bear told the court.

None of the attorneys at the hearing were able to say how much of the funding remains unspent or unencumbered.

“I never represented that the state is still spending this money. I represented that I did not specifically instruct them not to spend this money,” de Bear said Friday. “Unclear as to whether that’s happened.”

In a ruling issued hours later, Judge Michael Gadola ordered the state to freeze the remaining funds, saying the administration was “enjoined from encumbering, expending, transferring, or otherwise obligating” any money that had not already been encumbered by Sept. 15.

In a legal brief filed ahead of the hearing, attorneys for the Michigan Economic Development Corporation said $92 million of its $104 million in funding wrapped up in the larger debate had “already been properly and timely encumbered by the statutory deadline” — before the end of the fiscal year — meaning that spending cannot be stopped.

The math was “incorrect” in an initial State Budget Office letter requesting the Legislature carry over funding that was not spent last year, according to MEDC attorney Scott Eldridge. It was based on outdated numbers from August 2025, more than a month before the end of the fiscal year.

Eldridge said that freezing properly encumbered funds would “expose the MEDC and the (Michigan Strategic Fund) to a large degree to breach of contract claims.”

According to the State Budget Office’s request, the canceled funding included $159 million for the Whitmer-backed Make It In Michigan Competitiveness Fund, along with grants for various groups, like a cash assistance program for new moms and an organization that provides wigs to kids with cancer.

The House committee’s December vote had unilaterally canceled a litany of previously funded state projects, but after Nessel’s opinion was issued, the state quickly resumed the planned spending, and Gadola appeared to take some umbrage with the lack of restraint.

“You’re kind of forcing my hand,” Gadola told de Bear, indicating he intended to issue a written ruling on whether to freeze the funds next week.

Gadola seemed skeptical that a legislative committee’s ability to block executive funding extensions is unconstitutional, and if it is, why that wouldn’t also block the executive branch’s ability to extend funding beyond budgetary specifications.

But Gadola said he wouldn’t rule immediately to send those grant funds back to the state treasury, and at most would hold them in place while the lawsuit plays out.

Under a 1984 law, the State Budget Office, currently controlled by Whitmer appointees, can extend time limits on previously approved funding via requests to the House and Senate’s budget committees to make them “work projects.”

Instead of requiring both chambers to approve the requests, the law says the funding is automatically carried over for four years as work projects if lawmakers take no action. But either chamber’s budget committee can explicitly disapprove a request and send unspent funding back to the state general fund.

In her opinion, Nessel said that mechanism unconstitutionally allows the Legislature to take control from the executive branch and argued any action to block department spending, once the appropriation becomes law, should require formal action from both chambers.

Sean Dutton, an attorney for the House, argued the inverse, characterizing the law as a “grant of specific gubernatorial power with a check reserving what is already the legislative power.”

Dutton added, “the House Appropriations and Senate Appropriations Committees’ veto power over that procedure is a reservation of the existing power we already have.”

While opinions from the attorney general are binding on state officials and agencies, courts can ignore them and override them with decisions of their own. Gadola said from the bench that the ability to request funding extensions “isn’t an inherent executive power.”

“I don’t know how the statutory scheme can live on without both of those provisions being operative,” Gadola told de Bear. “I think what you’d be asking me to do is just sort of brush aside the quite obvious intent of the Legislature.”

Gadola said the Legislature “never would have granted the power” to request work projects if they believed a judge would later “determine that they didn’t have any say over the designations made by the budget director.”

An elected member of the state Court of Appeals, Gadola worked under Govs. John Engler and Rick Snyder before his appointment in 2015.

House Speaker Matt Hall, R-Richland Township, celebrated the injunction issued by Gadola on Friday, saying it “stopped Dana Nessel’s bogus legal opinion in its tracks.”

The RxKids Universal Basic Income program is now offered in Detroit and will be offered in every Upper Peninsula community by the end of March:

https://michiganadvance.com/2026/02/09/rx-kids-cash-assistance-opens-to-detroit-moms-expands-next-month-to-entire-upper-peninsula/

Rx Kids cash assistance opens to Detroit moms, expands next month to entire Upper Peninsula
By Martin Slagter - February 9, 2026

“Baby love” took on some added meaning in Motown with the announcement that enrollment in a state cash assistance program for mothers and babies is officially open to Detroit mothers, with plans to expand it to the entire Upper Peninsula starting next month.

The expansion of Michigan State University’s Rx Kids program was unveiled Monday during a press conference at the MSU Detroit Center, with Detroit Mayor Mary Sheffield joined by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to make the announcement. An estimated 8,000 babies born in Detroit every year will now be eligible for cash payments, making it the largest city in the nation to participate in the program that supports mothers and babies during the early stages of pregnancy.

Sheffield said it was an honor to work with Rx Kids to deliver on her “first priority”as mayor to invest in Detroit’s babies, so that they can have the best possible start.

Detroit Mayor Mary Sheffield talks about the expansion of Rx Kids cash assistance for Detroit babies and mothers during a press conference on Feb. 9 at the MSU Detroit Center. | Photo by Martin Slagter/Michigan Advance
“I have always believed that how we care for our children reflects who we are as a city and who we are as a community,” Sheffield said. “I’m extremely proud to bring a program that puts our families, our babies at the very center of how we govern and how we lead. Because we all know that when we lift up our families, we invest in the long-term health, stability and success of our city.”

Launched in Flint in 2024, Rx Kids has expanded to 29 Michigan communities, including Kalamazoo, Dearborn, Pontiac, Saginaw, Inkster and Ypsilanti with direct cash support. To date, Rx Kids has prescribed $23.68 million in cash payments to Michigan mothers, with 5,734 families enrolled and 4,298 babies benefitting from the cash assistance.

Rx Kids will support Detroit moms and babies during the early stages of pregnancy by providing families with $1,500 prenatally and then $500 a month for six months to prevent financial burden and improve health. All expectant mothers must be at least 16 weeks pregnant at the time of enrollment or have an infant born on or after January 1, 2026.

Detroit mother Rakiah Reives, who had a child born at the beginning of 2026, said she was elated to be eligible for the cash assistance program after reading about its impact in other communities.

Reives said she even became an advocate for Rx Kids before she had benefitted from the program, noting that its impact can’t be understated when considering all of the expenses that come with being a young mother.

“Now that I am an Rx Kids mother, I can say that the program is helping me cover all the things that I couldn’t cover on my own, just literally a couple of weeks ago,” Reives said.

Along with Rx Kids’ expansion into Detroit, Whitmer announced Monday that the program also is growing north of the Mackinac Bridge with eligibility expanding to all 15 Upper Peninsula counties in March.

Whitmer said the expansion of Rx Kids underscores Michigan’s continued commitment to scaling baby-first policies in both urban and rural communities.

“Whether they’re deep in Lions country or they live closer to Lambeau Field, they will get to benefit from this,” Whitmer said.

“In places where Rx Kids has been running, we’re already seeing better outcomes from more consistent checkups before and after birth, babies born at healthier weights and decreased NICU admissions. … It helps families when they need it most, no matter what. We have to keep working to bring Rx Kids to every Michigan mom who needs it.”

Rx Kids is led by Michigan State University and administered by GiveDirectly. As a public-private partnership, it is funded through both public investment and philanthropic leadership. After its launch, the state invested $250 million to expand the program to additional high-need communities over the next three years.

Rx Kids Director Dr. Mona Hanna, a pediatrician and Associate Dean of Public Health at Michigan State University’s College of Human Medicine, said the impact of the program can be felt by families who are facing financial stress, leading to housing instability, hunger and health complications with their young children.

“Rx Kids is not charity, it is medicine,” Hanna said. “This is what it looks like when we boldly improve health. It’s not a pill, it’s prevention. We give families a little bit of breathing room during pregnancy and infancy, when money is the tightest.”

Definition of "charity" for the ESL crowd.