Dear Friend,

Yesterday, in Detroit, I signed a balanced, bipartisan fiscal year 2025 budget to protect public safety, fix the damn roads, bring manufacturing back home, put workers on paths to better-paying jobs, and build a heck of a lot more housing without raising taxes by a dime.

Earlier this week, I signed a record-breaking education budget—my sixth—to make historic investments in our students, schools, and teachers while delivering on the Michigan Guarantee to provide access to free pre-K and tuition-free community college for all.

Together, we will keep getting things done that make a real difference in people’s lives to help everyone “make it” in Michigan.

Let's dive into the details.

A Balanced, Fiscally Responsible Budget That Lowers Costs

The budget makes critical investments to ensure Michigan’s budget is balanced and puts money back in people’s pockets.

Since I took office, we have paid down $21 billion of debt—more than either of the 2 previous administrations. This budget makes another deposit into our rainy-day fund, which climbs to a new all-time high of nearly $2.2 billion while continuing to set aside funds for the future of our children’s education through the rainy-day fund for schools.

We are doing all of this without raising taxes on Michiganders by a dime. In fact, this budget builds on the $1 billion in tax relief we delivered last year by continuing to roll back the retirement tax and quintupling the Working Families Tax Credit, lowering costs for thousands of seniors and families.

Keeping Michigan Safe

Since I took office, we have invested more than $1.5 billion to protect public safety. We also enacted commonsense gun violence prevention laws — universal background checks, safe storage, red flag laws, and stronger penalties for domestic abusers.

We’ve been able to invest significantly more in local public safety over the last couple of years because of our federal partners—especially Vice President Harris, a former prosecutor. We want to make sure every Michigander is safe as they go to work, drop their kids off at school, or run errands. This budget builds on our public safety work by: 

• Increasing revenue sharing for local governments by the largest amount in the past decade to hire, train, and retain more police officers, EMTs, and firefighters.
• Establishing a new Public Safety Trust Fund, which can surge resources to places that need it most.
• Upgrading our emergency communications system so we can better respond to distress calls.
• Funding community violence intervention programs to tackle the root causes of gun violence and crime.

Economic Development – Making it in Michigan

This budget continues our comprehensive approach to economic development. We need to build new factories, create jobs, and bring supply chains home. To get it done, this budget:

• Makes another deposit into our bipartisan economic development fund.
• Establishes the Innovation Fund to invest in scalable start-ups, and launch hundreds of new Michigan-based companies.
• Supports entrepreneurs and small business owners of color.
• Sets up a new Farm to Family program to bring Michigan crops to Michigan tables.

As we win more projects and create more good-paying jobs, we need to ensure Michiganders can compete for them. This budget supports workers by:

• Continuing the successful, bipartisan Going PRO program that helps employers upskill their employees.
• Funding the new Economic and Worker Transition Office to prepare Michiganders for new clean energy and electric vehicle manufacturing jobs.
• Guaranteeing every high school graduate can earn an associate’s degree or skills certificate tuition-free at their local community college.

Rebuilding Our Infrastructure

As you can probably tell, this is a busy summer for construction. The numbers don’t lie. More Michiganders are working in construction today than at any point in the last 22 years. They are rolling up their sleeves to fix the damn roads so people and products can get where they need to go safely and on time.

• We will issue the final, $700 million bond of the Rebuilding Michigan Plan in the next fiscal year to keep building up our most economically vital highways and bridges without raising taxes by a dime.
• This budget invests another $4.2 billion into our roads and bridges, including $1.7 billion from the Biden-Harris administration’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

But it’s not only about cars. 

• This budget also funds buses, rail, and e-bikes, so whether you’re using your own two feet or catching a ride with fellow commuters, your journey is smoother, safer, and cheaper.
• We’re fixing stuff below street level too—the budget invests $500 million to upgrade water infrastructure, including replacing lead pipes, so every community has clean water and less flooding.
• And we’re making an investment to help reopen the Palisades Nuclear Power Plant, protecting 600 good-paying jobs and clean, reliable energy for hundreds of thousands of homes.

Housing – Build, Baby, Build

• This year, MSHDA is making the largest investment to build housing in Michigan history—10,000 units! We are investing another $100 million to build or rehab affordable housing.
• We’re also funding the Revitalization and Placemaking program, backing projects to turn old, abandoned places into new housing or commercial spaces.

Keeping Michigan Healthy

This balanced budget will make Michigan a healthier, more equitable place to live. Last year, we enshrined the Affordable Care Act into state law. In May, I signed bipartisan legislation requiring insurance providers to offer equal coverage for mental health and substance use disorder treatments. This budget goes a heck of a lot further:

• Establishes new behavioral health clinics to serve 35,000 patients.
• Zeroes out premiums for MIChild, insurance for children in poverty.
• Funds the Crisis Line so you can get help when you need it.
• Continues Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies initiative to reduce racial infant and maternal health disparities.

I am grateful to my partners in the Michigan Legislature for delivering a balanced, pragmatic budget that delivers on the kitchen-table issues.

There’s a heck of a lot more in this budget, to read the full press release click here. Let’s keep getting it done and delivering for Michiganders!

Sincerely,

Gretchen Whitmer

Governor