Well, it happened. We technically had a brief state government shutdown for a few hours in the middle of the night early Oct. 1, but it was a shutdown in name only because everything stayed open.

The state budget was late, but there’s a lot to like about the final product, which passed with wide bipartisan support. Let’s go through some of the highlights:

Less government spending but more value for taxpayers, including nearly $2 billion for roads  

The overall budget is smaller than last year. Reducing the size of government is almost unheard of outside of a recession or wartime, but we went through the budget line-by-line to cut waste. The result is that the topline number is now around $2.5 billion lower.

And yet, despite cutting spending, we were able to find nearly $2 billion for roads, including more money for local roads.

All gas taxes paid at the pump will now go to roads, which is a major change. There’s also a new 24% wholesale tax on marijuana. That’s the “pot for potholes” trade that advocates always said they wanted in exchange for legalization.

No tax on tips/ overtime/ Social Security

We also eliminated all state income taxes on tips, overtime, and Social Security. If you work hard and put in long hours for overtime pay, you’ll be able to save more of that money to help get ahead. And we ended the glitch where a small number of retirees in Michigan at the lower end of the income scale were still paying taxes on their Social Security.

Record-high funding for education

The budget includes record-high funding for K-12 education. Funding went from $9,608 per student to $10,050 per student, which is a 4.6% increase.

The budget preserves funding for universal school breakfast and lunch. The plan I preferred would have provided a larger $12,000 per-student allotment and given local schools flexibility to decide how to spend the money, but some lawmakers wanted the lower per-pupil allotment and separate line items for other programs such as school breakfast and lunch. That was an easy compromise to agree on because the money was always there in both plans.

The funding for school breakfast and lunch includes private and parochial school students, too.

We also found $321 million to restore funding for school safety and mental health. That, likewise, includes private and parochial schools.

Elimination of more than 2,000 “ghost” employees

House Republicans got roundly mocked when we first announced that we found thousands of “phantom” or “ghost” employees (unfilled full-time equivalents) on the books. We learned money was getting appropriated for positions that never got filled, which ended up just sloshing around in the system. The governor and Democrats eventually agreed there are at least 2,000 of these unfilled FTEs, and to get rid of them.

Ghosts busted.

$26 million for Selfridge Air National Guard Base

The budget includes $26 million for Selfridge to prepare for and support the new fighter mission President Trump announced in April. Michigan is getting 21 of the cutting-edge F-15EX Eagle II fighter jets to replace the A-10 Warthogs. Selfridge is in Macomb County, but it supports a lot of jobs for Oakland County residents too.

More money for public safety

The budget includes a 20% pay raise for Michigan State Police Troopers and money to fully fund two trooper academies as well. The budget also includes $95 million to create a new Public Safety Trust Fund that will be used specifically to target high-crime areas based on the four main markers of major crime: murder, aggravated assault, rape, and armed robbery.

Earmark transparency

If you’ve been following the saga of the $4,500 coffeemaker paid for with taxpayer money, then you’ll appreciate that the budget deal includes an agreement to make earmark transparency permanent.