- Michigan’s new budget does not include $10 million in growth grants Gov. Gretchen Whitmer sought, redirecting funds to roads and schools
- By prioritizing infrastructure and education, the budget echoes Whitmer’s task force recommendations while sidelining smaller talent-attraction initiatives
- The future of the Michigan Growth Office wasn’t clear Monday
Less than two years after a panel focused on growing Michigan’s stagnant population released its final report, lawmakers denied Gov. Gretchen Whitmer the money she sought to implement some of its recommendations.
The future of Whitmer’s Michigan Growth Office wasn’t immediately clear Monday after lawmakers denied the governor’s request for $10 million to fund its recommendations. Among other things, the state office paid for grants to communities statewide that encouraged people to relocate to Michigan.
Longtime demographer Kurt Metzger contends the 2026 budget approved after midnight Friday shows population growth is “never going to get the support from the Legislature that it needs to move forward.
“I’m afraid that this report will sit on shelves and gather dust and maybe get picked up again in another few years when somebody tries to do something again,” said Metzger.
Lawmakers boosted road and education funding by billions of dollars, two core goals of Whitmer’s population task force, but Metzger said that, without a a core strategy, the state is “spinning our wheels.”
Whitmer created the growth task force in 2023 after years of mostly flat population. Between 1990 and 2020, no state except West Virginia grew slower than Michigan, which has about 10.1 million residents.
Among the task force’s recommendations: Make Michigan an “innovation hub,” invest in career training, invest in public transportation and add to the state’s housing stock. The final report was criticized by some for not attaching a price to its recommendations or a road map for implementing them.
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Growth Office spokesperson Brittany Hill did not respond to an interview request from Bridge Michigan but instead sent a written statement that said “folks across the state will continue to see Growth Office programming come online in the months to come as a result of recently deployed FY25 funding.”
That includes already funded grant programs around the state designed to either attract residents or keep existing ones, such as a program in southwest Michigan that pays out-of-staters to move there. Other continuing initiatives include career fairs and “high-impact field trips,” Hill said.
“We’re proud of the progress we’ve made in a short amount of time and are grateful to those who continue to join in the effort to help grow our state’s population,” Hill’s statement said.
Spokespeople for Whitmer’s office and lawmakers in charge of Growth Office appropriations could not be reached for comment on Monday.
Eric Lupher, president of the Citizens Research Council of Michigan, which highlighted the state’s population woes in 2023, said investments in roads and schools will “have a longer-lasting effect.
“You’re doing things to help more people,” he said.
Indeed, he said it was hard to tell if the smaller-scale growth programs — which he said was the state “winging it a little bit” — were working.
In years past, flush with federal cash, the state could afford to try, he said.
“Obvoiusly, with this budget you had to scale back,” Lupher said.
Indeed, the 2026 budget, at $81 billion, is $2 billion less than last year’s budget.
And when lawmakers were pouring billions more into road work and transit and education, something had to give. One of those things was Whitmer’s growth programs.
Molly McFadden is resource development director for the Southwest Michigan Regional Chamber, the group behind the Discover Southwest Michigan initiative that offers $5,000 in housing down payment assistance and free tuition at a local community college to any out-of-stater who moves to Berrien, Cass, or Van Buren counties. McFadden said the group is still waiting for final approval on the first person to accept that offer.
The chamber got a $100,000 grant from the Growth Office in 2024 and received the money this year. They would likely have applied again if the program continued.
“If there’s money on the table, everybody’s interested,” said McFadden.
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