Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm signed the state’s higher education budget into law last week, cutting state appropriations to universities across the state by 2.8 percent. And though representatives from both political parties agree that a cut was necessary to cope with budget constraints, they diverge on the nature of the cuts.

State Rep. Dave Agema (R–Grandville) said Republicans were concerned about the future when planning for the current fiscal year’s budget, adding that the party wants to see how universities are spending their funds.

“We want to know how they’re spending money,” he said. “I can’t tell them how to spend it, but I can sure as heck not give it to them.”

Agema said if the state’s economic woes don’t improve, cuts to higher education appropriations are an almost certainty in the future.

“I anticipate an even bigger cut next year,” he said.

State Sen. Liz Brater (D–Ann Arbor) said she pushed for a smaller cut in appropriations for Michigan universities, while also recognizing the need for increasing revenues in the state, which currently match those of the 1960s.

“We need to have sufficient revenues at the state level to invest efficiently in higher education,” she said.

Though the budget was slashed, financial aid and scholarships were protected in the legislation.

“The money was shifted back into some of the financial aid programs,” Brater said.

House Speaker Pro Tempore Pam Byrnes (D–Lyndon Twp.) said in order to safeguard financial aid and scholarships, appropriation reductions for university operating expenses were necessary. Byrnes added that in these tough economic times, everyone feels the impact of budget cuts.

“We’ve really had to tighten our belts,” she said. “Starting next year, legislators will be paid 10-percent less than they were before.”

Byrnes said she doesn’t know how universities in the state plan to cope with the cuts.

“I don’t know whether that means they’re going to have to tighten their belts more,” she said. “Are they going to be looking at more tuition increases?”

But School of Education Prof. Stephen DesJardins said the University was already planning for what they thought was going to be a 3.1 percent cut in appropriations.

“In some ways, it’s good news because they thought (the budget cut) was going to be bigger,” he said.

DesJardins, who is a higher education expert, said he feels the University is handling the budget cuts in an efficient manner by preparing for them before they’ve been handed down.

“In some ways, we’re ahead of the game in trying to deal with the increasing revenues or cutting costs,” he said.

In addition to diverging on the level of the cuts, Democrats and Republicans differed on whether the higher education budget should include language requiring universities to report stem cell research to the state. Republicans pushed strongly for institutional reports on the state of stem cell research projects, while Democrats advocated for the schools to have autonomy on the issue.

“The main one was, of course, the stem cell language, which we were successful in getting out,” Brater said.