Written by Tanya Terry
Pamela Pugh, president of the Michigan State Board of Education and candidate for U.S. Congress for Michigan’s 8th Congressional District, talked to the Courier about her concern that the fiscal year ’25 (FY25) budget cut needed funding for mental health service by over 90%. The budget was approved by the state legislature at the end of June and was signed by Governor Whitmer by July 24.
The budgets consists of a cut from $328 million recurring dollars to $26.5 million in dedicated funding for school safety and mental health supports in the current year.
“The State Board of Education, during our June meeting, asked for the FY25 budget to maintain $328 million,” stated Pugh. “That was in Section 31aa dollars funding. That was that categorical line item, and that line item is used for children’s mental health and school safety. Those dollars were available in 2024, but they were non-recurring.”
Pugh pointed out the State Board of Education had a special meeting in May with parents of victims of Oxford. Pugh said these parents were calling for the funding in mental health and school safety.
“Districts are now scrambling, trying to determine what it is they’re going to do – at a time of mental health crisis,” said Pugh. “And we know that there’s great need, whether we look at gun violence that’s happening in our community that’s spills over and impacts our schools, or whether we’re just looking at in a post-pandemic world, the heightened need for mental health support.”
Pugh pointed out that mental health supports are needed in a community like Flint because of the Water Crisis, and communities such as both Saginaw and Flint where poverty and crime are both high.
Pugh recently hosted a session with community members in Saginaw, in the Saginaw High neighborhood Pugh grew up in – a high crime area that has been neglected and abandoned. There, she met with neighborhood groups, victims, children and spouses who have lost loved ones to gun violence. There, they talked about the connection between violence and lack of support or investment in communities.
“It is not the time to cut mental health budgets. If we look at the news, where we saw the attempt of the life of a former president…If we look at the increase in mass shootings, whether they’re at schools, whether they’re at the splash park, whether they’re in Detroit at the celebratory party…This is not the time to cut mental health budgets.
“Our communities have long suffered from just being in areas of poverty and all that comes with that.
“The increase in crime, the increase in violent events that we are seeing happen more and more in a post global pandemic environment, we see the need for mental health budgets.
“We need to make sure that our police have mental health supports -because police are not mental health professionals, but they should have access to mental health professionals so that they can refer and make sure that they are appropriately addressing issues that we’re seeing increase as our mental health crisis persists.”
“I called for the Legislature and our governor to put forward a supplemental budget that replaces these dollars – puts these dollars back, on a recurring basis. I will put forward a resolution so that my board and I speak in one voice. We are also planning to do some sort of public event to call for it as well.”
According to Pugh, details about the event are still being vetted out.
She said the worst-case scenario is that districts will be forced to lay off mental health professionals, such as school counselors.
However, the supplemental budget would go into effect after the Legislature comes out of recess and Pugh is still hopeful it will be approved.
