HOUGHTON/MARQUETTE -- Michigan lawmakers are getting ready to wrap up a spending plan for the state's next budget year.  They're working to eliminate a projected $484 million deficit for the fiscal year that begins Friday.
    
Tuesday, the State House and Senate approved a 2.8 percent reduction in the higher education budget for universities.
    
It's unwelcome news for NMU and Michigan Tech, which both recently passed their budgets for this year.  But both universities say they anticipated the cuts and planned accordingly.

"We were prepared for this reduction in funding, actually, because we budgeted for a 3.1 reduction and it comes in at 2.8 percent.  We have about 155, 156 thousand dollars that we can use for other resources on campus," said NMU Director of Communications, Cindy Paavola.

"Reading the tea leaves among the different estimates from the House, the governor and the Senate, we kind of looked at all that stuff and we figured that we'd probably err to the side of be conservative," added Michigan Tech President, Glenn Mroz.

Both institutions will have to wait until after the election to begin preparing for next year's budget.