LANSING – The conference report adopted for the Michigan higher education budget includes a 5.9 percent increase for universities and removes language that would have docked Michigan State University $500,000 for its role in a course regarding so-called “prohibited instruction activity” on unions.

Overall, the items of difference amount to about $85.9 million gross (about $81.9 million General Fund) more than what the budget received in funding for the current fiscal year.

The 5.9 percent is a decrease from what Governor Rick Snyder and the Senate Appropriations Higher Education Subcommittee had proposed at 6.1 percent, but that’s because funding is now also spread out to include about $1.8 million in additional funding for the tuition grant program (the House had proposed a 5.6 percent funding increase in this area, but the governor and Senate proposed nothing).

That means universities will see an additional $74.6 million, and the MSU AgBioResearch will see another $1.7 million (again, down from about $1.8 million from the Senate and governor’s recommendations).

But another major change is the removal of language that would have penalized MSU for its supposed role in offering courses that encouraged union organization, though MSU had earlier defended the program against criticism from Sen. Tonya Schuitmaker (R-Lawton), chair of the Senate subcommittee that had included the $500,000 penalty.

Schuitmaker’s proposed budget originally included language that stated a university receiving state funding under the circumstances prescribed by state law “shall not participate in any instruction activity that encourages or discourages union organizing of employees … or programs that provide instruction, in whole or in part, in techniques for encouraging or discouraging employees in regard to union organizing.” If a university was found in violation of that, its appropriation would be reduced by $500,000.

The conference report adopted by the conference committee on SB 768 changed that wording to nonbinding language saying it is the intent of the Legislature that “a public university shall not knowingly and directly use any portion of those funds to offer any instructional activity that targets specific companies or specific groups of companies for unionization or decertification of a union.”

Schuitmaker told reporters after the meeting that she thought that was “a fair compromise.”

“I continue to have concerns but MSU has pledged that they’ll continue to work with me on this issue to make sure that what is going is not what I had initially thought, and they’ll be providing me course materials,” she said. “I think there’s been a very peaceful agreement.”

She said she does not have a timetable in mind by which she expects to receive those materials, instead saying that she trusts the university will get them to her in the next several weeks.

“They pledge this has a lot of educational merit and that it’s not taking away from students’ costs in terms of higher education,” she said. “That’s my main concern that taxpayer dollars are spent wisely, and these other programs that universities enter into is not driving up the cost of college.”

Other key changes in the report adopted on a 6-0 committee vote are the inclusion of $500,000 for North American Indian Tuition Waiver assistance (originally included by the Senate) and $4 million in School Aid Fund money to go toward Michigan Public School Employee Retirement System reforms (the Senate proposed $15 million while the governor and House proposed nothing).

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