South Michigan News

Federal COVID-19 relief money can be used to fill Michigan’s budget gap, particularly for education, according to state Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey (R-Clarklake).

“Just about everything has been COVID-19-related for the last 12 weeks,” the senator said on the Guy Gordon radio show June 12.

Most of Michigan’s federal COVID-19 assistance has not yet been claimed, Shirkey said.

Sen. Mike Shirkey | #MiSenateGOP

“We have a dearth of creativity,” he said on the radio show. “The conditions that were presented to us when that money that was doled out, provide for us to deploy it -- particularly in schools.”

In March, as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, schools were asked to “pivot 180 degrees, on a dime, and start doing learning through distance,” the senator told Gordon. “As far as I’m concerned, all the effort and all the money that went into executing that was all related to COVID.”

Shirkey said he would “love have that debate with the federal government. And if they don’t think so, let’s have that debate.”

The federal money could be used to “fill the hole for schools” in the current budget. “I believe some of the other money in the CARES Act could be equally and similarly applied. We just have to think differently," Shirkey added.

He said the state should make a decision on how to use the funds, document that decision and be prepared to defend it if challenged by the federal government.

“Let the cards fall as they may,” Shirkey said on the radio program. “There’s no way that, as fast as they acted, they could have been thorough and complete in describing the conditions for which this money should be deployed.”

On the issue of police killings of suspects in custody, Shirkey said legislators should be cautious in dictating exactly what police officers can and can’t do.

“You and I don’t know what they’re going to face next,” Shirkey told Gordon. "Now, do I think choke holds should be used excessively? Hell no. But when you are in a fight -- and it is a fight, when you're in a confrontation -- your No. 1 job is to win the fight with the least amount of force, but sometimes that least amount of force to win the fight is pretty excessive in the moment."

"I don’t want to be the judge to tell cops what they can and can’t do. Because pretty soon, they’re going to be afraid to do anything,” Shirkey said on the radio program.