Nik Rajkovic / news@whmi.com

For a second straight year, Michigan lawmakers missed a soft school budget deadline, with no vote in Lansing Tuesday.

The statutory deadline for a new budget is July 1, which lawmakers added to law after 2019. Districts typically finalize their own budgets by June 30, relying on the state’s per-pupil allowance.

Lawmakers on both sides announced a framework agreement June 23. But there was no voting in either the House or Senate session Tuesday.

“I sit here now not knowing, and not having seen any of the details of the school aid budget so I can’t even share that with my members,” said Jennifer Smith, director of government relations for the Michigan Association of School Boards.

“Districts will have to go back and rewrite their budgets based on the numbers because they made budgets based on guesses.”

Districts were forced to wait until Oct. 3 last year. Many had to take out loans and absorb the interest costs before a budget was passed.

“We had districts without a budget that froze hiring, pink slipped staff and teachers, had to freeze programs for kids because they didn’t know what sort of funding they would get,” Smith said.

There is no penalty against the Legislature or governor for failing to meets its soft deadline. The state’s fiscal year officially begins on October 1.