LANSING, Mich. – Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer shuffled millions of dollars in state department funding during a special state administrative board meeting Tuesday morning.
The move comes after a season of contentious budget negotiations that nearly shut down the state government.
The transfers are within 13 departments, and Whitmer said she is giving priority to certain programs.
Budget bills signed
Whitmer avoided a state shutdown Monday night by signing the budget bills sent to her desk by the Republican-controlled Legislature. However, she used her line-item veto power and cut nearly $1 billion out of the budget. In a video posted to Twitter, Whitmer explained her reasoning.
"I had to use my line-item veto to try, and clean up budgets that were a complete mess," she said. “Built on phony numbers, using funds in the wrong way, usurping executive power -- these are important things I had to eliminate from these budgets."
Republican leadership fired back immediately.
"This whole budget impasse was silly and avoidable," House Speaker Lee Chatfield tweeted. "Now that the governor’s shutdown threat has been shown to be simply empty words, the cameras will stop rolling and headlines will move on. Hopefully that means she will finally come back to the negotiating table and get back to work," he said.