LANSING, Mich. (WXYZ) — Michigan House Republicans cut $645 million in funding that was already approved in this year's state budget.
Tuesday night, the Michigan Senate voted to restore the money. No action has been taken by the full House.
Watch Darren Cunningham's video report below:
Republicans said that money was slashed just last week by an appropriations subcommittee because money in the most recent budget was unspent.
The money that's being clawed back was subsidized costs for cities and nonprofits.
>> Read the memo sent to the committee on the state's website.
The list of impacted organizations and groups are familiar names including the Detroit Zoo, the Hamtramck Fire Department, the Holocaust Memorial Center, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Jimmy John's Field and more.
Related video: Metro Detroit groups scramble after nearly $650 million in state funding pulled
"We have worked day and night since last week, on the phone with stakeholders across the state, businesses, community members, municipalities just begging us to reconsider the approach that was taken," House Democratic leader state Rep. Ranjeev Puri told 7 News Detroit. "Often, when we let them know what happened, people are left infuriated," he said.
Republican Speaker of the House Matt Hall told 7 News Detroit some of the cuts aren't set in stone.
"Some of it's not a done deal, correct. So, the way it works is we have a very limited amount of time under the law to review all of the billions of dollars of work projects that were shoved into that budget," he explained. "If you're not spending all the money you're getting in a year, in some cases, we're stopping that, taking the money putting it into the general fund and we're having discussions because our job is to get value for the tax dollars."
"People work really hard to give us their tax money. And when you see, some of these organizations, they're asking for millions more than they need and then they don't have a plan to spend it after a whole year," Hall said.
Puri said, "Lansing Democrats are trying to do everything they can to try and clean up the mess that the House Republicans have created here. So in the Senate, we've seen them take legislative action to try to restore this money, but that cannot be done single-handedly. That requires both chambers to approve that, and so the Senate has done their part."
Puri said House Republicans refuse to put the issue up for a vote.
Hall said more investigation into each funded project is needed.
"So, I think they should come in. They should explain. They should justify the spending and we're going to cut all of the waste, fraud and abuse and if there's things in there that are justified, then we can bring bring that back early next year," Hall said.
He said restoring those funds would take place in a supplemental budget bill. However, Puri said waiting until then, for some programs or projects, could be too late.
