Governor tell us about the budget that you signed today
well this is an outstanding budget
what a great outcome two years in a row
but this was a situation where we structurally balanced the budget in a thoughtful
way
we were able to put more money in the rainy day fund we now will have a half a
billion dollars in the rainy day fund we're paying down long-term liabilities
and we're building a future here to say here's a long-term path of success these
are exactly the things we should do in a budget we're gonna keep it up
what are some of the other great things that are in the budget
that those people of michigan can see and look for
a number of things we added money to education to start with over two hundred
million dollars
which is a good increase but it wasn’t about just spending money it was about
performance funding it was about best practices uh... many good things there
but then you continue on public safety was a major area
and we're going add a hundred eighty state troopers and we're going to do mental
health courts and also community ventures really look at the structurally
unemployed how can we get them a job because if they have a job they're not going to
get into crime they're going to have a much better quality of life
on the human service side important things children in particular were a priority
We’re adding over five hundred human service workers to help with children
services we're doing healthy kids dental we’re adding dollars to autism these are all
exciting things these are great programs now that this is done what's next
well we're going to keep going in terms of the budget process but other projects on the
Horizon are
we need to look at reforms for our public employees retirement system
that's an important issue because right now we have unfunded liabilities
of about forty five billion dollars
that's too much
we need to make sure people have a good retirement
and we also need to look at long term cost structures
so let's look at some reforms there to more and better manage those cost
for long-term and give better confidence to the people in the program
