South Michigan News

State Representative Nancy Jenkins-Arno (R-Rollin Township) voted in favor of Michigan’s final budget for the 2025-2026 fiscal year. The approved plan includes increased funding for schools, significant investment in road repairs, and new measures to improve transparency in state spending.

“This budget reflects the priorities of the people of Michigan which are stronger schools, safer roads, and a government that taxpayers can trust,” said Jenkins-Arno. “We’ve delivered record high funding for students, made major investments to repair our infrastructure, and implemented permanent measures to ensure every dollar is spent openly and responsibly.”

Key elements of the budget include an increase in per-student funding to $10,050, up by $442 from the previous year. The plan also ensures that public cyber school students receive equal funding. Nearly $2 billion in additional funds will be directed toward repairing roads and bridges across the state.

The budget introduces new standards requiring all special projects funded through earmarks to undergo a fully open process with public hearings. For-profit companies are now barred from receiving earmarks under these reforms. Permanent changes have been made to ensure these transparency rules apply to future budgets as well.

Jenkins-Arno serves as chair of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor and Economic Opportunity (LEO). In this role, she led efforts on transparency reforms by holding hearings so that all earmarks would be reviewed publicly.

“People deserve to know exactly how their tax dollars are being spent,” said Jenkins-Arno. “That’s why we fought to make transparency a cornerstone of this budget. We held public hearings on every earmark and locked in reforms that will protect accountability for years to come.”