Check One Off "How to Save $2.2 Billion" List — Governor Vetoes "20j" Money

Gov Jennifer Granholm has actually outdone the Mackinac Center with a cost saving measure enacted on Monday. Specifically, she line-item vetoed the so-called "Section 20(j)" appropriation in the Fiscal Year 2009-2010 K-12 School Aid Budget, which would have granted $54 million to 51 particular school districts that tend to be wealthier ones, with some exceptions.

(A 2007 House Fiscal Agency memo describes all the boring details of the supplemental payments which began in 1999, and which are related to a district's Proposal A "hold harmless" status.)

Other than being a substantial and necessary economy, what's noteworthy about the cut is that it's double the amount first recommended by the Mackinac Center in a 2006 article called "How to Replace the SBT With Nothing," updated last spring to boost the savings to $2.2 billion. In those pieces we suggested cutting the "20j" payments in half.

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