The 2025 Michigan budget awarded a total of $5 million to three workplace training organizations, though a union-affiliated one was the big winner.

The Michigan Workforce Development Institute, affiliated with the AFL-CIO, will receive $4 million. A second organization, called a “forest products workforce training and development program” in the budget, will receive $750,000. Helmets to Hard Hats, a veterans organization will receive $250,000.

The state budget provides no information about the forest-related program, including who will receive the funds, other than the recipient is based in Lansing.

These three projects are enhancement grants, colloquially known as earmarks or pork projects.

There is no open, transparent process for awarding organizations enhancement grants, and there is often no record of which legislator requested a particular grant. Organizations that receive them are hand-picked by individual legislators, leaving out of contention others who may want an opportunity but lack connections.

Reps. Julie Brixie, D-Meridian Township; Kara Hope, D-Holt; and Emily Dievendorf, D-Lansing; represent portions of the Greater Lansing area, home of two of the programs. CapCon sent an email to these officials to ask if they requested the funds for either the AFL-CIO workforce institute or the forest workforce program.

Hope replied, saying, she did not request the money and does not know anything about the programs. Neither Brixie nor Dievendorf responded.

The union workforce institute began in 1988 as the Michigan State AFL-CIO LEAD program, according to its website. Its name changed to Michigan State AFL-CIO Human Resources Development Inc. in 1990 before assuming its current name.

“Our mission,” the website reads, ”is to combat economic and environmental injustice by connecting the unemployed or underemployed with the training and resources necessary to find gainful employment and transition Michigan to a cleaner, greener economy.”

The institute shares a street address with the state AFL-CIO. Aaron Pelo, the AFL-CIO director of communications, did not respond to an email that asked if participants in the workforce development program must join the union as a condition of participating.

Helmets to Hard Hats helps veterans move from military service to the civilian workforce. It provides “skilled training and quality career opportunities” in the construction industry, according to its website.

The state chapter is part of a national organization under the same name. It did not respond to a request for comment.

Michiganders will have difficulty holding the government accountable in the $83 billion 2025 budget as lawmakers slashed severance pay reporting requirements for 18 departments.

Lawmakers cut the reporting requirements for the following areas: the Michigan Department of Education; Environment, Energy, and Great Lakes; the general government; Insurance and Financial Services; Labor and Economic Opportunity; Licensing and Regulatory Affairs; and the Department of Natural Resources.

The budget also removed severance pay reporting from the Agriculture and Rural Development, Corrections, Health and Human Services, Military and Veterans Affairs, State Police, and Transportation.

Employers often pay severance to workers who are fired, laid off, or who retire, as a way to provide a brief financial runway for bills such as housing and food.

The change in the new budget will lead to more corruption and government waste, said Rep. Mike Harris, R-Waterford, who serves on the House Ethics and Oversight Committee.

”By keeping generous severance payments secret, Democrats are keeping corruption and incompetence under cover of darkness,” Harris told CapCon. “When Gov. Whitmer paid her top bureaucrats hundreds of thousands of dollars to go away and keep their mouths shut, Republicans exposed this corruption and held the governor accountable for hush-money agreements.”

In 2021, a reporter discovered Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration made nearly $253,000 in severance payments — undisclosed, at first — to government workers who abruptly left during the COVID pandemic.

In 2022, voters gave the Democratic Party a political trifecta, and the state’s new leaders cut the severance reporting requirement.

“Budgets required transparent reporting on severance deals to expose taxpayer-funded golden parachutes for the employees the governor fires,” Harris said. “But in their new budget, Democrats stripped out these and other key transparency measures, enabling government waste and mismanagement to fester.”

Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks, D-Grand Rapids, hasn’t responded to a request for comment. The Legislature doesn’t return to work until late July.

Lawmakers cut another transparency measure, which applied to the Michigan Department of Corrections, the judicial budget and the Department of Education. This requirement compelled the agencies to track key performance metrics on a publicly accessible website.

Lawmakers also deleted a requirement that the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development maintain performance measures and key metrics on a publicly accessible website. They deleted a similar requirement for the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s office hasn’t responded to a request for comment.

(Editor's note: This article has been updated to note that 18 departments have been released from reporting severance payments.)