LANSING – The reported Michigan House budget bill for the state’s various departments for the 2014-15 fiscal year fills the Health Insurance Claims Assessment hole and provides General Fund monies for a road funding plan introduced by House Speaker Jase Bolger two weeks ago.

HB 5313 was reported on a 19-0 vote on Thursday with all Democrats abstaining and all Republicans and Rep. John Olumba (I-Detroit) voting in support.

In total, the bill is $36.39 billion ($8.15 billion General Fund).

The House added $110 million to the Department of Community Health Budget to fix a hole in the budget caused by the HICA shortfall. Chair of the committee Rep. Joe Haveman (R-Holland) said he expects planning for the HICA shortfall in future budgets and the state “living within its means” will likely be the permanent solution for the shortfall.

Prior to Thursday’s changes, House subcommittees had reported budgets $133 million General Fund under Governor Rick Snyder’s recommendation for the 2014-15 fiscal year. All of the savings, under an amendment adopted Thursday, was directed to the Department of Transportation budget, to the tune of a $137 million increase.

That additional road funding is designed to be available for the General Fund monies needed in the House transportation plan announced by Bolger (R-Marshall) and others earlier this month.

Rep. Rob VerHeulen (R-Walker), chair of the Transportation Subcommittee, said the new road funds are a product of reprioritizing certain parts of the budget.

“In many of these budgets, there are reductions in General Fund spending,” VerHeulen said.

Other changes to the bill included adding language making the film incentive cut one-time, rather than ongoing. The bill would reduce funding from $50 million in the current year to $25 million.

Democrats offered a variety of amendments that were defeated on mostly party-line votes, including an amendment offered by Rep Sam Singh (D-East Lansing) to stop funding of the appeal by the state of the March U.S. District Court ruling striking down the state’s ban on same-sex marriage.

Amendments also were offered that would have expanded Healthy Kids Dental to Kent and Wayne counties, provided funding for the Department of Corrections to put guards in the guard towers and other security improvements and restored the National Guard tuition assistance program to the executive recommendation level.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Detroit), minority vice chair of the committee, said before voting that the omnibus budget bill meant a less transparent process and expressed frustration that, although there are six agencies where Democrats and Republicans worked together to come up with a budget, because of the departments where there were disagreements, the Democrats had to oppose the entire bill.

The House in recent years has worked on the budgets in separate bills in subcommittees, but then combined them into two omnibus bills once they reach the full Appropriations Committee.

“I want to be able to vote for one of these budgets in here, six of them actually, and I can’t,” she said. “I want to be able to have the right with representing 90,000 people to be able to vote for some of these budgets. But I can’t because it is an omnibus form, and I think that is completely unfair.”

For Tlaib and Haveman, the budget bill reported on Thursday is the last they will work on in the House Appropriations Committee.

“I would like to say thank you to my close my friend and minority vice chair Rashida Tlaib,” Haveman said at the end of the committee. “Another third-termer, it’s just been an honor to work with you, and I consider you a very good friend as well as a colleague.”

Tlaib and other Democrats on the committee also thanked Haveman for his work as chair, saying although they may not always agree, he leads the committee well.

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