HOUGHTON — While many groups gave a sigh of relief with the announcement Thursday of agreements between the three branches of state government regarding Michigan’s budget, some state entities were still left unaware how much they would be funded following an official passage of the budget. While an announcement of an agreement was made, some details of the budget are still unclear. One of these areas of lingering uncertainties is education, with schools still wondering how much of the budget will provide for school programs, including students’ meals.

The uncertainty of students’ accessibility to breakfast and lunch was a large subject of discussion at the last Houghton-Portage Township Schools (HPTS) Board meeting on Sept. 15, where HPTS Superintendent Anders Hill and the board went over the negative impacts of losing free meals for students. Meals have been free to students since the COVID-19 pandemic, and some families have never had to pay for their children’s meals at school. At the meeting Hill assured students would still be fed, but it could cost the school money and parents may have to pay for meals. HPTS is still at the same point it was back at the September school board meeting.

“They kind of made that big splash Thursday night by the governor saying we have an agreement,” Hill said. “All the headlines are ‘state averts budget crisis’, but there’s been no vote. There’s been no details. We’re all still kind of waiting like ‘Okay, what does this entail?'”

He explained internal discussions have occurred regarding what could be done, but a final decision hasn’t been made.

“As I look at the Free Press and the Detroit News, and some of those media outlets, they’re kind of talking about marathon meetings, and those kinds of things. And hopefully we’ll hear something. It sounds like they plan to have something in place by October 1, but we don’t know quite what that is or the details,” Hill said.