State budget contains fewer earmarks than in years past

The 2025-26 Michigan budget that took effect last month contains many fewer earmarks than budgets of recent years, and it brings some significant changes to the earmarking process.

Most of the dollars in the state budget are allocated to various state departments through broad spending categories. But some spending goes to projects or entities that individual lawmakers specifically request. These items, variously called pork projects, earmarks, or legislatively directed spending items, came to just over $5 million in the 2015-16 budget

Legislators had requested $4 billion in earmarks for the 2025-26 budget. But the enacted budget included only $360 million in earmarks, according to James Hohman, director of fiscal policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

Hohman sought to identify the purpose or recipient of those earmarks but could not account for 29 projects that represented $53.8 million in earmarked spending.

MIRS News reported that the state took a different approach to earmarks this year. “Unlike prior years, the public got a look at who was getting what ahead of time, even if it was only a few hours ahead of time in the case of the Senate.” A second change, it said, was the volume of earmarks. MIRS said there were 200 projects valued at $275.4 million, in contrast with $2 billion in the 2024 budget.

Though MIRS and Hohman found a similar trend, they used different methods in their analysis, leading to different results. MIRS “went through looking for boilerplate language devoting cash to single local or private entities,” Hohman replied when a colleague asked him why he and MIRS came up with different numbers. “MIRS tracked the requests posted on the legislature’s site as part of the new pork transparency rules.”

The Michigan Senate had a larger influence than the House in establishing the earmarked funds. Roughly 50% of the earmarked dollars senators requested made it into the budget, MIRS reported, but only 45% of those requested by representatives did.

Democratic legislators made a larger impact on the budget, with 56.8% of the value of their requests ending up in the budget, MIRS said. The comparable number for legislative Republicans was 41.2% of their requests. Democrats control the governor’s office as well as the Senate while Republicans control only the House.

The new budget introduced a new procedure for allocating earmarks. Starting in January 2025, members of the House have publicly reported what they call legislatively directed spending items. The Senate now has its own version, with the first reports being made Sept. 30.

Michigan Capitol Confidential has used many of the House’s disclosure documents this year to tell readers the details of various projects. It will now draw on Senate documents as well to tell members of the public how their representatives are spending their funds.

State agencies will distribute earmarks differently in the new budget. Recipients had received half of their earmarks up-front, MIRS reported, but now they will need to submit requests for reimbursement.

Earmarks go to a variety of purposes, including storm sewers, public safety, city parks, local roads, health clinics, food banks, social service agencies, day care centers, homeless shelters and a public library. Roughly $31 million will go to nonprofit organizations yet to be disclosed.