Nessel urges appropriate funding for AG’s office and county prosecutors amid Michigan budget talks

For every dollar the State of Michigan puts in the budget for the Department of Attorney General, it earns $4 back for the state, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel told lawmakers in the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday.

As Michigan House Republicans propose a budget that allocates no funding to the Office of Attorney General, as well as several government agencies in the Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 budget, Nessel said the result of such a decision would be disastrous.

“Let me tell you why that’s a bad idea. Our state would go bankrupt literally within weeks if that were that to happen,” Nessel said. “We defend all lawsuits against the state…and we’re the only department in the state that contributes revenue to the state that is not a tax or a fee.”

Operating on approximately one third of a percent of the state budget’s General Fund, about $120 million, Nessel said in 2024 the department won more than $500 million in court for Michiganders.

Nessel went on to say her office has obtained 11 settlements over her six-and-a-half-year tenure in its efforts to hold the pharmaceutical industry accountable for the opioid epidemic, which has resulted in thousands of overdoses in Michigan since 2000. These settlements have awarded $1.64 billion to the state to be distributed through local government and statewide government programs.

While there’s a lot of negative commentary regarding government employees, Nessel said, alluding to President Donald Trump’s executive actions to trim down the federal workforce and eliminate “bloat”, Nessel said her staff work tirelessly to improve the lives of Michiganders.

From educating elderly Michiganders on scams to investigating long-overlooked cases of missing and murdered indigenous residents, Nessel touted the work her office has done, including facilitating 315 individuals to enroll in the state’s Address Confidentiality Program to shield the addresses of those who have experienced domestic and sexual violence and stalking.

But it’s not just the Attorney General’s Office that is charged with helping Michiganders find justice, Nessel said, noting that county prosecutors play an instrumental role in the state’s justice system as the state faces a shortage of prosecutors amid staffing shortages and underfunding.

And now county prosecutor’s offices across Michigan face the task of reviewing hundreds of murder cases in a 180 day window after the Michigan Supreme Court eliminated mandatory life sentences without parole for 19- and 20-year-olds last week. The time schedule prescribed by the state court is “insanely short” Nessel said and will take an immense amount of effort from prosecutors to handle resentencings.

House Appropriations Committee Chair Ann Bollin (R-Brighton Twp.) has proposed cutbacks in the state budget for the Michigan Supreme Court and the State Court Administrative Office to invest into county prosecutors’ offices to address the workload.

“If the Michigan Supreme Court wants to upend the justice system and force communities to relive horrific crimes, they’re going to have to tighten their budget,” Bollin said in a news release Monday. “I’m going to make sure the people doing the real work — our local prosecutors — have the resources they need to keep dangerous criminals behind bars and fight for justice on behalf of victims and their families.”

It’s hard to explain the breadth of what the Supreme Court’s decision will mean for Michiganders, Nessel said. Beyond the “excruciating” experience for families of deceased victims during resentencing, cases will have to be revisited from decades ago and the effort it takes to rebuild a file will consume prosecutors’ offices.

“I hope when you’re formulating your budget, you just keep that in mind as to just how much work goes into that and how important it is for these types of cases, the most important kinds of cases where a person lost their life, so my hope is that you will consider that,” Nessel said.