State Rep. Andrew Beeler on Wednesday said Democrats’ new budget prioritizes wasteful pet projects for politically favored communities instead of delivering the public services that Michigan taxpayers expect from the state government.

The governor on Wednesday signed Senate Bill 747, the state’s general budget, a day after signing House Bill 5507, the state education budget that passed the Legislature along party lines. The state only has enough money to pay for all the wasteful spending because Democrats raised the income tax on every Michigander and small business at the start of this year.

“The state budget should responsibly address the needs of the entire state of Michigan, such as fixing broken roads and keeping our neighborhoods and schools safe. Democrats’ priorities lie elsewhere,” said Beeler, R-Port Huron. “Their giant budget, which was funded by their recent income tax hike, managed to inject cash into pet projects in a few favored communities like Detroit and Lansing. But the Democrat trifecta couldn’t be bothered to distribute any extra statewide resources to help every community repair their city streets and rural roads, and they chose to axe hundreds of millions in school safety funding. Kids struggle to read and drivers can’t navigate pothole-riddled roads, but at least casino-goers in Detroit’s Greektown will have taxpayer-funded Wi-Fi.”

A $300,000 grant to provide public Wi-Fi in Greektown is one of scores of pet projects in the two budget bills. Combined, the $82.5 billion budget earmarks more than $400 million for pork projects, most of them in predominantly Democrat areas.

However, the budget fails to implement accountability measures to ensure transparent and responsible use of taxpayer dollars. In previous budgets, private recipients of earmarked grants have misspent funding without accountability or oversight. For instance, an ally of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was awarded a $20 million earmark for a new company she created, and she used the funding to buy a $4,500 coffee maker and a first-class international plane ticket. Despite this record of unwise spending, the legislation doesn’t incorporate proposals from Beeler and House Republicans to ensure adequate accountability measures that would require recipients to submit a transparent spending plan before receiving funds, conduct an annual audit on grant spending, and pause and investigate projects that misuse resources. In fact, Democrats removed language from an earlier budget proposal that would have clawed back funds from two past questionable projects, Global Link International, which wasted funds on the coffee maker, and a community health campus in Clare.

While funding pork projects and other wasteful spending, Democrats’ budget neglects crucial public services. It distributes no extra funding to repair broken local roads, but it does give out $30 million for electric vehicle charging infrastructure and more than $200 million for solar power programs.

The education budget has received especially sharp criticism from parents, school leaders, and teachers’ unions, who have said the budget will lead to program cuts and layoffs. Although the education budget bill spends $23.4 billion, Democrats slashed school safety and mental health funding by $302 million, or 92%, while raiding the teacher pension fund and refusing to increase the per-pupil foundation allowance, which is the primary source of funding for K-12 schools. The budget marks the first time since 2011 that schools will receive no per-pupil increase. Meanwhile, seven in 10 fourth graders aren’t proficient in reading, and seven in 10 fourth graders also aren’t proficient in math, according to recent assessments.

Estimates compiled by the nonpartisan House Fiscal Agency show the multimillion-dollar effects of this funding cut on school districts in the communities Beeler represents in Sanilac and St. Clair counties:

The budget takes effect Oct. 1.