Michigan students may not get any additional snow days forgiven this year.
The state Senate unanimously passed a bill on Tuesday that would have forgiven four state declared emergency snow days. But after that vote, several Democrats voted to not give the bill immediate effect. It’s a procedural move which renders the bill useless because it would not take effect until well after the school year has ended.
“My partners on the other side of the aisle decided that unions are more important than kids,” said Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey (R-Clarklake). “We were doing our best to give schools as much advance notice as possible so they could plan. And they chose to leave immediate effect off, and so that leaves the schools uncertain.”
But Democrats say they want assurances that hourly workers will be paid for the forgiven days.
“We don’t think it’s ready for primetime yet, so we didn’t give it immediate effect,” said Senate Minority Leader Jim Ananich (D-Flint). “So we can have chances to make fixes and continue to negotiate.”
The House could make changes to the bill and send it back to the Senate for another vote on whether to give the bill immediate effect. But Republicans in the House say it’s unlikely they’ll come to a consensus before the end of the school year.
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