FIM 99H Grant: Michiganders, synchronize your watches

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Gail sent an email just a little while ago, asking that Michigan FIRST folks contact our state legislators urging them to support continuing the grants that have done so much to grow and sustain FIM and FIM teams. There’s an app in her email that makes this easy to do. I won’t repeat the email here because if you are in FIM you should already have it.

Let’s all help Gail and FIM, by getting this done.

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Yep. It’s very easy. A few clicks, press send, and you’re done.
I sent mine already and received a reply from Rep Matt Hall of district 42. It was quite clear in his response that he has no idea what FIRST Robotics is or the impact it has on our students. His current proposed education budget doesn’t cut the funding that was allocated to section 99h. However, it reallocates that funding into the per-pupil allotment.
Per Mr. Hall, “This budget puts local school districts in the driver’s seat. The programs that they value can continue to run or even be expanded if they so choose.”
This may sound fine on the surface, but, for teams like ours that have traditionally relied on that specific, line-item funding to cover the registration cost each year, this is potentially a killing blow. My guess is that school systems will get this extra per-pupil funding (which would be a ridiculously low percentage of a school system’s budget) and find other uses for it. Our school system really likes what we do, but we get no financial support from them outside of this grant.
I would suggest that for any Michigan team members willing to spend a few minutes to send these emails to our state reps, please add a sentence or two asking that they seek out teams in their area to see what we actually do and how that funding affects us.

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a few thoughts:

  1. boilerplate emails are not as effective as one written specifically to a lawmaker.
  2. asking a lawmaker to “seek out teams in their area” is a waste of time. They have a lot to do and don’t have time for that. It’s important that YOU have that information for them: How many teams are in their district, where they are, how many students are exposed to STEM through FIRST.
  3. If your school district is lukewarm on robots, it’s time to expose them to what you are doing. Invite them to local competitions, bring them into the pits, have kids tell, no SHOW them the impact of the program. We all know folks don’t understand what we do until they experience it. Have every team in the county come together and have a STEM open house. If they are the ones who many be handling the money. You need to get to them as well.

Getting funding is just one part of the problem. You have to work to keep it.

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A few quick thoughts about your replies.

  1. You are correct, but I would argue that a boilerplate email is better than none. I would also argue that if Gail (FiM coordinator) had not done what she had done to help our community, then far fewer folks would take time to bother with looking up their rep and typing out a well-crafted email. This at least makes it easy for people to do.
  2. State reps are much more likely to respond to requests like this than federal reps. It certainly doesn’t hurt to ask.
  3. The school is well aware of our team and what we do. The superintendent has come to several of our competitions over the past couple years (you can check out his selfies on the school website). They love what we do, just don’t ask them for anything.
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@Richard_Wallace
Can you PM me the email or app link? Neither myself or our mentor #2 received the email.

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Done and shared to my networks in Detroit for reinforcement

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While I think your points are somewhat valid, I think the point of this being set up is it maximizes how many people will do something.

Also if history says anything, how Gail chooses to attack this stuff is pretty effective, given the size of FiM at not just FRC, but all levels of FIRST. I’m gonna trust she knows what she is doing when it comes to convincing the MI state government to continue the MDoE funding.

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Any update on the status of the 99H grant for 2025-2026?

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100% Gail is VERY good. I’ve worked with a lot of executives at some very powerful companies (Microsoft, Amazon, Meta) and she’s high on my list of effective people in a leadership role.

As I grew as a coach and to started to interact with people outside of FiM, I was surprised to learn that the ground truths were so different across delivery partners and regions. That doesn’t happen in a vacuum.

So yeah if FiM asks me to rally my coaches and parents in Detroit to send a political letter…I’m just gonna make it happen and not debate the issue.

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Disclaimer: I am terrible at bill-proposal legalese so take this with a grain of salt if I’m misreading the data.

It’s still not all settled, the House and Senate both have different proposals and they need to merge and get approval of one budget together.

Non-public schools are cut right out either way (loss of $600,000).

House version: $5,323,200 rolling in the lost $600,000 from Non-public schools, keeping the overall amount the same. Robotics funding merged into Sec. 22f per-pupil payments. Passed June 10th

Senate version: $6,264,200 allocated which is a ~32% increase over last year for public school teams. Robotics funding a distinct Sec 99h line item. Passed June 26th.

Last year public schools had $4,723,200 available of the total $5,323,200 available. The other $600,000 was restricted.

per: https://legislature.mi.gov/documents/2025-2026/billanalysis/House/pdf/2025-HLA-4577-56J8TLWH.pdf

Public school teams should prefer the Senate version of the budget. It’s an increase while also making sure schools can’t use our funds elsewhere for other per-pupil expenses. Without that separation local districts could redirect what would have been robotics dollars toward salaries, software upgrades, maintenance, or other discretionary costs permitted by Sec 22a/22b. Leaving teams with a major funding gap.

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Thanks for posting the summary!

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I’m still worried our school is going to fight giving us any money. They fought every year about the mandated funds the lead mentor is supposed to get.

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