The Senate appears unwilling to take the hard line the House took against universities and other public bodies that signed long-term contracts with their unions prior to the state's new right-to-work law going into effect last month.

The Senate Appropriations Community Colleges subcommittee reported out its budget Tuesday and did not include punitive language for those that signed such contracts.

Last month, several House appropriations subcommittees reported out budgets that would financially penalize universities, schools and local units of government for such actions. The House budget for universities, for example, would penalize Wayne State University with a loss of $27.5 million in state aid, and the University of Michigan with a cut of $41 million.

Last month, Wayne State governors ratified an eight-year contract, and the University of Michigan reached a tentative agreement on a five-year contract with a union representing 1,500 lecturers. Both contracts were settled before the right-to-work law went into effect.

Sen. Darwin Booher, R-Evart, the community college subcommittee chairman, said he had not determined whether any of the state's 28 community colleges signed such contracts "for the right reasons," or if they did so to try and "avoid it."

"If in fact they did it for the wrong reasons, then I think there probably is a penalty for that," Booher said.

The Senate Appropriations Higher Education subcommittee is scheduled to report its budget on Wednesday and its chairwoman, Sen. Tonya Schuitmaker, R-Lawton, said she expects her budget to look much the same as the community college budget and will not include such financial penalties.

"The schools that did it had open contracts," Schuitmaker said. "I think that a cut to higher ed to those schools that did it would only hurt the students in the end."

Chris Gautz: 1-517-403-4403, [email protected] Twitter: @chrisgautz