2019 budget mostly a win for Michigan state government employees

Justin A. Hinkley | Lansing State Journal

LANSING – The last budget Gov. Rick Snyder will sign is mostly kind to state workers, with more than $80 million in mass hires and significant technology upgrades.

The only major loss to civil servants in the 2019 budget, which takes effect Oct. 1, is nearly $40 million from the closure of two prisons. Still, the Michigan Department of Corrections, along with 11 other departments, is funded for a net increase in employees.

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The budget also includes funding to handle a 2% pay increase already negotiated between the administration and employee unions.

The 2019 budget has passed both chambers of the Legislature. Snyder, who leaves office in December because of term limits, has yet to sign the budget and could veto individual items.

The most notable gain for state workers is $13.2 million allocated to replace a problem-plagued prison food contractor with state employees. The 2019 budget also includes $2 million for expanded job training for inmates who work in prison kitchens and $50,000 earmarked for prison kitchen inspections.

Lawmakers gave more than $26 million for a net 232 new Michigan State Police troopers, $9.2 million to train 359 new corrections officers to replace retiring officers, and $1 million for seven new Michigan Department of Natural Resources conservation officers.

Lawmakers also plan to invest heavily in technology and equipment used by state workers. Most notably is nearly $14 million in technology upgrades in the Michigan Department of Health & Human Services that will help with an "integrated service delivery" project. That will streamline the bureaucratic process for Michiganders on or seeking public assistance and help move DHHS employees who handle food stamps, Medicaid and other public assistance programs to an easier-to-manage "universal caseload."

There's also $14 million for state park renovations and equipment upgrades for the DNR employees who manage them.

On the negative side of the ledger for state workers, the Legislature budgeted $18.9 million in savings for the closure of the West Shoreline Correctional Facility in Muskegon Heights, which the Corrections Department shuttered this spring. They also earmarked $19.2 million in savings from the closure of a second facility, though the department has yet to identify which prison might close or when.

Much of that savings would come from the elimination of prison employee positions.

Overall, Snyder's two terms in office have been mixed for state workers' bottom lines.

He cut the state workforce by a net 3,500 employees between the 2011 and 2017 fiscal years. But the average annual pay for state workers increased by nearly $5,000 as Snyder's administration agreed to pay increases in all but one year since he was sworn in.

Contact Justin A. Hinkley at (517) 377-1195 or jhinkley@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @JustinHinkley. Sign up for his email newsletter, SoM Weekly, at on.lsj.com/somsignup.