Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s 2027 budgetproposes the fewest number of state government jobs she has asked the Legislature to fund in four years, despite a request for nearly 1,000 new health department workers to cope with new federal mandates.
Whitmer’s slimmed-down state workforce request suggests that House Speaker Matt Hall’s 2025 war on thousands of funded but unfilled positions in Michigan government is having an impact beyond the 2026 budget, approved last October. That budget funded 1,788 fewer “full-time equivalent” (FTE) positions in state government than were approved for 2025, and 2,670 fewer than Whitmer initially requested for 2026, records from the State Budget Office show.