Thanks for joining us.

Our guest, this week is the governor's budget director.

Chris Harkins on spending about eighty 1 billion of your tax dollars are lead.

Stories are recall movement in the Michigan house.

And the Attorney General filed charges against 16.

Republicans election fraud, is the charge on the OTR panel, Chad Livengood Jordyn Hermani and Zachary Gorchow sit in with us as we get the inside out Off The Record.

Production of Off The Record is made possible in part by Martin Waymire.

A full-service strategic Communications, agency partnering with clients through public relations, digital marketing and public policy engagement.

Learn more MartinWaymire.com.

And now this edition of Off The Record with Tim Skubick, here we go.

Welcome to Studio C Off The Record.

Nice to have you all on board here is we wait to cross examine the Budget Director and eighty 1 billion dollars.

A lot of money.

Is it Anyway?

Attorney General was busy this week.

What was she doing?

Chad she was leveling some pretty serious charges against the 16, Republicans who posed as Michigan's.

Electors claiming the Donald Trump had won the election.

They signs official.

Certificates that went to the National Archives.

It was an effort to try to basically claim themselves.

The alternates which is not the way the process works when the presidential election is decided which Joe Biden won.

Michigan by 154,000 votes, we've all memorized that number over and over but they showed up at the Capitol trying to gain access and she is now brought a whole host of fraud conspiracy charges against them muttering and Publishing type charges in order to basically say that they were trying to commit fraud in an effort.

To overturn the 2020 election.

And I mean these were people who admittedly should have known better.

I mean we have everybody from the former Michigan.

Republican party co-chair mishaan Matic to a current Shelby Township Clerk stand grott.

The mayor of Wyoming is one of these false electors.

These are individuals who say at least some of them say that they maybe weren't aware of what they were signing at the time but some of them are you know currently claiming that this isn't, this is a Witch Hunt.

I know that the the state Republican party has been Been lobbying all sorts of accusations against Nestle that she is a tyrant for bringing forward these charges that these were people acting and what they saw as the best course of action for their government.

Regardless of how you feel.

Nessel is going to have to prove this out in court.

There is a long way to go still but it is admittedly.

Not looking great for these 16 individuals.

It's a unique case.

Obviously this is there's really nothing like this that's ever happened when it comes to elect Electoral College votes.

And it's going to go, I think to the attempts, by these people who would have been Trump electors to say, well, we didn't, you know, we didn't really know, you know, what we were doing.

We weren't trying to subvert the election the argument.

It's already like, well, we were just being prepared in case a Court ruled that, you know, something changed in Michigan.

And then we had done what we needed to do.

But, you know, obviously like Jordyn said, this is all going to be proved out in court, but if you go back to that, I think it was December.

14th was a day in December, in any event in 2020, that was a very fraught time.

I mean, a lot of these folks showed up at the north side of the Capitol and we're expecting to be, you know, attempting to get their way into the building and had to be denied by the Michigan State Police.

And they were not there at the time.

The argument was not, we're doing this, just in case.

The argument was Donald Trump won, Michigan, and were the rightful electors.

That was the kind, Context of what this happening in question.

The kind of Rises here is, is this part of a national round up essentially where there were other efforts in other states?

And we're going to find out probably in the near future with the special counsel Jack Smith pointed by the attorney general has a larger Global case here because there are individuals that were involved with the, the 16 electors who aren't charged here.

And that's a kind of curious little aspect of this is whether there's a bigger fish.

All round up essentially about to happen in a larger case, revolving around whether Donald Trump himself.

Orchestrated an effort to subvert the will of the people.

Well mrs. Nessel is getting criticism that her net was not bigger.

And her argument is she?

She has these fish to fry which Ira Michigan fish.

This machine attorney general filed.

These major charges and didn't hold a press conference.

Hasn't answered any questions about it.

We don't know a lot about this case.

Other than what is in the charging documents and what's been publicly reported for four months on end.

But yeah, top Republican officials like Kathy burden the Republican National Committee woman and Michonne Maddock the co-chair.

It appears in the charging documents, they were the ringleaders of this.

And then these 70 and 80 year old people that get these delegates as Republic along with longtime Republican activists.

They showed up in sign this piece of paper and now they're claiming, we didn't, we didn't understand that.

This was you know, going to be afforded.

On to the National Archives and the chief judge of the of the district court did I read correctly that Laura Cox, who was then, Republican party chairs sort of ad hoc advise this committee that to take the stance of as a back-up plan.

Rather than saying, we are the electors, you know, Laura Cox's role in all.

This is a little bit murky now.

Interestingly, she was called to testify before the Congressional Select Committee on this and revealed at the time to the widening eyes of One at this table.

No doubt that there had been discussion.

Among these electors about sneaking into the capital, the night before the Electoral College vote so that they couldn't be denied access.

And I believe when she found out about that what she told the committee under oath was she thought that idea was insane and inappropriate.

So that being said, you know, at the time, Laura Cox was doing a lot of things to try to help the Trump campaign, make the arguments about the Accuracy of the election, you know, her exact role.

Like I said is not exactly clear but it does seem while she had allowed the group to meet at the what was then the state Republican party headquarters to talk about this that she was not part and parcel of this plan.

When do we get a resolution years from now?

I don't think it'll take that long but I don't think that we should be holding our breath.

That this is going to be resolved by the end of the year.

For instance I believe their next court date is East first, if I'm remembering correctly, it's Zhu.

Jian people and how many lawyers are going to get involved?

I mean, this could be a complete circus and and then how they're going to manage this.

I mean, I was asking whether they're going to like, you know, hold this hearing in, Lansing city council chambers because it's going to be.

So monstrous to try to handle all these defendants at once.

And yes, there's an open question about our Laura Cox and her top staff.

The star Witnesses against the the fake.

Lecturers, and I think that's, that's part of the Coming Attraction, is he?

Alright.

So if you thought that was an interesting story, he would go with recalls recall if we haven't ever recall in town a long time Z, well, there's a good reason for that.

It's very, very difficult to recall, an elected officials.

Finally woke up and said, you know what?

We got to make this tougher.

So various entities, the exact origins of which are not totally clear.

But it seems, they are of a conservative bent have Filed petitions to recall five Democratic members of the house and one Republican member of the house.

Now, anybody can file a petition.

What you, what really takes, is one a tremendous amount of resources for the legal and litigation Onslaught to prevent it from getting any.

Further is coming.

And to the ability thus far, never done to gather the an equivalent number of signatures from registered voters to 25% of the total vote.

For governor in the last gubernatorial election in Tada 60 days.

No one's ever done it.

Since this law was reconfigured in 2012, there have been several attempts.

They've always come up short.

The odds are against this from the jump because one it's not clear where the resources are coming to support this and to the Democrats.

And in the case of the one Republican who also started will fight this tooth and nail in the courts.

And to fight every signature for validity.

There is the alleged allegations are and the objection.

Is it one of them voted for speaker Tate?

Okay.

And they run a route.

Yes.

And the gun safety legislation that we didn't like, and they hate crimes of the who's behind this.

Do we know that's the beauty of this story?

It looks like some of the people that are, there were ran against these people before were opponents in the in last election.

In that case of Tim kabat up in northern Michigan.

He's got some Republicans in his district that want to take him out somehow and or take him down a notch, think he kind of kind of fell into that seat sort of speak with some connections to a certain former speaker.

And, and so a, yes, there's, there's some question.

There's, there's going to be a whole lot of local politics entangled in this nothing.

This actually sets off his recall, the recall effort against Governor, Whitmer, and even monstrous.

Larger Hill to climb where she was able to go out and get donations above the legal limit?

Yeah, this is problem, likely going to trigger that.

And so someone like Betsy Kafia up in Traverse City, where there's a lot of money and a lot of democratic money.

Now, all of a sudden she's going to be able to start, you know, pouring in money and Republicans want to try to take her out in the actual election next year.

And that's it.

She's going to have a running start here.

Probably heard and Jimmy churches down in Wyandotte.

They are both.

Occupying admittedly.

Extremely purple seats.

I think they both won by about 1% over all of the vote for one percent higher than their opponent.

So this ability to endlessly fundraise.

Effectively might just be the Boon that they need that.

Otherwise, I think we saw in reports earlier this week, some Republicans saying there might not be a snowball's chance of getting a republican to be able to financially successfully be able to run against them because of this.

Now what is Matt Hall said, the Republican leader.

I heard crickets.

Is a lot of crickets.

Well, I will say, what's comical about the targeting of Cam Cavitt the Republican.

It's clearly be from the concern, really?

Right wing of the party is the way the recall law is structured.

They, if the Republicans up there, some of the want to take them out, they can't do it.

The way the law was configured in 2012, the incumbent who is targeted is the automatic nominee in a recall election.

There is no primary, so, I don't know what they think they're doing up there other than maybe, you know, getting a little bit of attention.

But the only person who could Beat Cam Cavitt is a Democrat or a member of another party, and that's not going to happen in that District.

Are you better off mounting an actual primary?

Next year?

The way the election normally works.

If they want to take cam Cabot out.

Well, the surprising thing about this is that the chatter from the gun lobby was we're going to do this in late Summer, Okay.

So that that shoe is yet to drop.

So these people beat them to the punch, but you mentioned the word recall in A legislature.

It has a chilling effect, whether it has a snowball's chance or not.

Yes it does.

His story.

But again that law chat changed so much after the recall of pulse God, the Republican who voted for, I think in education, budget or something that can be 18, like it.

I mean they took him out.

And and so after that the Republicans and under J soldiers side, we need to change this law and make it almost next to impossible to recall sitting member of the legislature.

Let's call increase Arc and see what he's got to say.

Director.

Welcome back to life the record.

Good to see you.

Let's start with an easy one.

Based on the spending that was in this budget.

Do you think the next budget will have some Cuts?

Because the revenue to sustain the spending won't be there.

Oh no, Tim what we've got is a budget where we focus really clearly on one time versus ongoing revenues and what we, what we put together along with the Democratic Leadership in both the House and Senate was a budget that spends our ongoing revenues appropriately and we look forward every time you put a budget together.

So when as you all know as we do our Revenue conference in May, we use that to finalize these sort of numbers and and we've put together a budget that we feel really good given what we've seen in Mesa will be good for lightener the ranking, Republican on Appropriations has said, publicly, we are going to have to cut programs next time.

She's wrong.

Well, I think what, we'll, what we do.

Every time we do a budget, it's a living and breathing document, right?

And so, we make changes throughout the budget every year.

That's your maybe it might happen but I'll Never Say Never Tim.

But I think what we see based on the revenues that we've got that come from a consensus process that is really, it's nationally recognized as being a strong consensus process because we have people, we take our our fiscal Experts in the state, our Treasurer and Our non-partisan House and Senate Fiscal agencies and they work together and come up with numbers and we trust those numbers and we work with those numbers across the aisles and that's what we based our decision making on.

And so we've done that.

We did that in May will look at those numbers again in January and will do that before the governor puts out her budget and we'll adjust as we go.

But that's the beauty of our of our budget process is it does live in a breeds and we supplement and change as we go.

But right now the The ongoing spending that you see, in these budgets that the legislature passed.

We think, we think we can sustain that sort of spending.

Yes.

What do you think it would have been wise to reserve more of the Surplus?

Say a billion as a hedge in case of some type of economic problem?

I mean, I know there's like a billion dollars in the rainy day fund and now, there's whatever, 400 some million and the new school Avery fun.

But to spend it all down and almost one Fell Swoop is that risky You've seen, you know how fast revenues can drop and how fast budget stabilization fund can be expended.

It's a great question, Zack, but we've got, we've actually got nearly two billion dollars in the rainy day fund at this point with the hundred million dollars that the legislators put in in the current fiscal year.

And then the one that we're putting again, in fiscal 24, we've got almost two billion dollars there.

And as you point out for the first time ever, we're putting 450 million dollars into a new school aid rainy day funds which is I think it's a great Posle.

It's something.

I'm really pleased to have seen State through from the governor's recommendation, all the way through the legislative process.

I think you can always put more money away but it's also it's also important that we take taxpayer dollars and fund things.

The taxpayers want us to do.

We have to continue to do things like invest in roads, invest in schools, but we also took some of those revenues and put them back in people's pockets, right?

So we also had tax cuts, we have targeted, tax cuts, and things like the changes.

For the Working Families tax cut, that helps bring people out of poverty.

We've got tax changes as well for our retirees.

So those spends have to be.

Those are those are spending offsets.

We do debate with the legislature.

We debate even internally where to spend those resources.

But I think what you see is is an attempt to put some of those dollars into Reserve.

While also activating some of those dollars as we put the budget together to that point though about spending, you know on things that Our constituents the michiganders, want the recently signed education budget had about 100 or I'm sorry 611 million dollar increase per pupil.

The GOP has recently been lobbying complaints though that the amount of pork that's in this budget, could have gone to other places.

I mean, you know, we have spending for, for instance, like a new Cricket field and Troy.

How do we justify then, you know, spending on what some might see as just sort of pet or throw away projects?

Yeah.

It's you know as you look at what people would call a pork project or a special project, I think it's important that we also.

We also pulled back and understand that that one person's pork project may be very valuable in the certain Community, right?

And that we've worked with this legislature very specifically.

Jordan to make sure that the projects that the legislature has included our public purpose projects, right?

And that there is a reason that taxpayer dollars should support these things.

And if you look across the board, Bored as the legislature or I'm sorry, is the administration puts a budget together.

Typically, we look at things and do it from a Statewide perspective, but as we work with our legislative Partners, a lot of times, we find that there is a community that needs an additional resource, something like a fire truck right.

In that case, that may look like pork to someone outside of that Community.

But for a community that needs that resource, I think there's a lot of argument that that's valuable spend within the I think it really depends on both where you're at and what the perspective is.

But it's an ongoing question and it's one that kind of happens throughout that budget process every year in this current fiscal year budget.

There was six point eight million dollars to dredge a lake, north of Clare.

In the former speaker, Jason wentworth's District what went into the decision-making on on, why we should dredge with this one, leg versus the other thousand lakes to have a dam on them in Michigan, that brought They're probably other people anything even the governor's own environmental Department says, this is not a priority Lake.

Well, I think as I was saying, a few moments ago as you go through a legislative process and you come out with a budget, there's a little bit of give and take and I think the administration's preference is to fund Statewide programs to make sure.

As you're pointing out, Chad, that that we have the resources necessary to do an evaluative program and understand where the priorities may need to be.

But as we go through and negotiate with, with our legislator friends, sometimes we find that Euler project or a particular interest may may rise to the top and and we work within those confines, we would like to make sure that they are still.

These are still things that are that have public purpose.

There's still people who are positively impacted by that, but sometimes this is, as I said before, it's not only a living breathing document but, but a state budget is still a political Document and needs to.

We need to recognize that.

So the governor River horse trades for votes for Budget bills.

Why don't?

I don't know that.

I like to use the phrase horse trade Chad, but I think it's a matter of having active conversations with the legislature to see how we can.

How we can make sure we have those resources necessary to deliver for the people of Michigan.

So some cases what you're saying is you have to hold your nose and do something that you don't want to do Tim.

I have to do that every day of my life.

I'm, you know, I as a As a father and a husband, I do that everywhere.

I go.

I do that through the budget director, you're the gatekeeper.

Here's our guy that says, this is good, this is bad.

And in this case you said we're going to turn.

Alright, we're going to turn away while I don't think it's a matter of Turning Away Tim.

I think in a lot of instances, it's still a matter of making sure that we can that we can understand the need for this project is other dams that needed work to be done.

That could save people's lives.

If those dams go and you worked on a project of dredging which basically had no impact on human life other than the people living around the Lake.

All right.

What we find though Tim is that we do still have spending to support things like damn safety throughout a budget, right?

So we still find ways to make sure that our state departments are successful in delivering things that are impactful for people and they do try to protect protect the people in the state.

So it's it's a matter of ensuring that we still have those resources to do, what our experts are state agencies, know what they need to do, and we work within those confines.

I was surprised that relatively It'll affect very little of the Surplus was put into roads, just given the origins of this Governor as the as everyone knows the fix the damn roads Governor.

But there wasn't, you know, even after the bond issue that was done, which pumped a lot of money or sped up a lot of money into state-owned roads.

Local roads have been crying out.

Like hey, there's been no increase in our funding since that 2015 plan and here.

There was billions and billions sitting out there.

That could have been directed into local roads.

And it wasn't What what happened?

Well, again, I think, as we put a budget together and you all know, it's this current budget that the governor, we expect, the governor will sign at some point soon for fiscal year.

Twenty four is roughly, 82 billion dollars and it's a lot of its you have to take a lot of priorities and put them together as we look at at roads.

We know, as you point out, we've got a lot of revenues coming in from some of those Bond resources and we're using those deploying those around the state.

I know, as I drive around, there's a lot.

Out of orange barrels around right now and we're making some of that progress.

But as we as we try to figure out how to deploy those one-time resources, we have put money into roads, we've managed to put some money into things like Bridge bundling which allows us to use those resources really effectively and make sure we improve both Bridges and some of those roadways around the bridges.

We've expanded that used to some some local facilities as well and then we're also working on some, some newer creative deployment of Is like Intermodal connective spots where buses and card might connect or where boats and other items connect with other forms of transportation.

So there is still a focus on making sure we've got improved roads but I think it still requires a much longer conversation on what those sort of how we're going to continue to fund our roads, how we're going to make sure we improve as we go forward.

But we did put resources into roads and I think again, you're seeing a lot.

Impact, as you try to drive around town right now, one thing I can't help but wonder is that, you know, back during the Snyder Administration, we sort of arbitrarily imposed, this summertime deadline of the budget, which we know, you know, legally, the budget does not have to be completed until later in the year as a result.

I mean, we're working with 82 billion dollars which is an inconceivable amount of money for so many individuals.

And, you know, we have a budget where admittedly not as much money is going towards roads, or we have it going towards random sort of Lake dredging.

I mean, do you think it All a budget of this size could be a victim to this arbitrary deadlines.

And do we ever see ourselves kind of getting away from this Snyder are a marker.

I think what, what we've tried to do is, you know, the governor puts forward a budget in in the end of January or February and that's a really public document.

I know when we share those things with you all, we've got hundreds and hundreds of pages of information and back up and we share those things.

And then the legislature goes through a pretty robust processed of public debate.

In subcommittees, I think this legislature did a really nice job of having far more active subcommittee conversations.

Some of them even went around the state to do so, and get feedback and then they produce their own budgets.

And I think that the time it takes to do that will vary in can vary every year.

I think trying to get something done ahead of time is is valuable it allows us to still try to make sure we don't run out the clock.

I think there's a lot of danger in that, that answer as well.

But using using this kind of July first marker as a as a really as a goal, I think it's still valuable because it helps to make sure that we are still pushing forward so that you're not letting a budget language as well.

You think it took turns Point encourages like horse trading in the sense that we need to make this deadline.

So I will give you this pet project if you know, in turn helped vote and get us across the Finish Line.

I don't think that July 1st statutory deadline really forces, that sort of conversation, Ian, I think that working with the people that that we have in charge.

Now, we'll take as long as we need to make sure we have a budget that is, that is correct and spends, taxpayer, money wisely.

If it means, we have to go longer will go longer.

But in this case, we didn't need to do that this year and we were able to get a budget done, I think in a good budget done before that, that statutory requirement, we estate for an overtime shirt.

If she has got a quick question, the majority of these projects were added after the budget price action, the committee process, would you support having just Larger grants that they have, people have to apply for.

So that like there's 124 million dollar should for 20 school districts to get for specific projects.

A lot of school districts, hundreds of school districts.

Get didn't get in on that deal.

Yeah, I think it's a good idea.

Chad to make sure again the administration always likes to have statewide projects are, I'm sorry Statewide programs to support projects across the state.

And to do a grant to make sure we can evaluate those things.

I think having having the resources deploying them, appropriately like that.

Fine idea.

Take a deep breath.

Will do some clothes credits.

Come back and we'll continue.

Great fair enough, sounds good.

All right.

Go to wkar dot org for overtime on OTR with the budget director.

Production of Off The Record is made possible in part by Martin Waymire, a full-service strategic Communications agency partnering with clients through public relations, digital marketing and public policy engagement.

Learn more at MartinWaymire.com For more off the Record visit WKAR.ORG.

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