LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) — With Michigan next to dead-last in the nation on attracting new residents, the governor’s commission on how to grow the population released proposals Thursday on how to get there–and the report met with an immediate negative response from the GOP leader in the Michigan House.

The document calls for more study on a new funding formula for education, and it appears that more revenue will be needed for other proposals. “There is a crisis unfolding in Michigan; the kind that requires us to take action now, before it’s too late. Our growth cycle is broken,” said Council Chair Shirley Stancato, who is also Vice Chair of the Wayne State University Board of Governors.

The document calls for more study on a new funding formula for education, and it appears that more revenue will be needed for other proposals.

But one GOP lawmaker and lone “no” vote on the panel says that was left out. “I also believe the commission did not put forth one of the recommendations for the governor, and that is finding new revenue,” said Michigan Rep. Pauline Wendzel (R-Coloma).

FILE – This April 5, 2020, file photo shows an envelope containing a 2020 census letter mailed to a U.S. resident in Detroit. Michigan’s slow population growth over the past decade will cost the state a U.S. House seat, continuing a decades-long trend as job-seekers and retirees have fled to other states. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya, File)

Detroit Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Nikolai Vitti came close to calling for a tax hike, but said this instead: “Through more equitable funding and stronger level of funding, but that has to be along with more accountability, more systems of coherency and integration, that frankly are lacking.”

The House GOP leader, Rep. Matt Hall, criticized the governor for spending $2 million for a report that allegedly repeats what other reports have suggested, and he said that if all the revenue goals are met, it will cost “billions of dollars.”

Rob Coppersmith, the lobbyist for the road-building industry, expressed this commission’s hope: “I hope that both sides of the aisle, Republicans and Democrats and everybody, can get behind this report.”