Inside 208

Last week the House passed its omnibus budget which included the same level of funding for fire protection grants that was appropriated last year – $9.2 million. Yesterday the Senate passed its budgets which matched the $9.2 million level of funding. Fire protection grants are awarded to communities who have...

Yesterday afternoon the Senate passed the general government budget including the 4.8% increase as recommended by the Appropriations committee. The Senate budget does NOT include the language we oppose in the House budget with additional posting requirements. It does, however, contain language requiring local units to disclose from which country...

Last week another victory occured in the effort to bring equity to online sales tax collections. The Senate voted 63-30 to invoke cloture on the legislation known as the Marketplace Fairness Act, which would allow states to collect sales taxes on online purchases. This sets it up for final passage...

Yesterday afternoon (April 23, 2013) on the House floor language was removed that would penalize communities who settled contracts between December 12, 2012 and March 28, 2013 before the right to work legislation went into effect. The idea of the language was to penalize communities who “circumvent” right to work....

In a call with the League today, an official from the White House confirmed that the federal government will be reducing their committed payments on interest of the Build America Bonds. They are expecting the reductions to be about 9% below their original committment. These would apply across the board...

Late yesterday afternoon the Senate Appropriations Committee passed the general government budget including the 4.8% increase as recommended by the subcommittee. The Senate budget does NOT include the language we oppose in the House budget with penalties for settling contracts before right to work went into effect and additional posting...

In some great news for local communities, the US Senate is posed to take a vote on the Marketplace fairness bill as early as next week. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) made the motion to start the process of moving the bill to the Senate calendar, bypassing the committee...

Last week at the League’s Capital Conference our members expressed significant frustration with EVIP. During the Q&A following Governor Snyder’s speech he indicated that he wanted to hear from us regarding our concerns with the program. This afternoon we sent this letter to the Governor expressing various concerns with the...

This week and next are busy times for the budget. As we mentioend earlier this week both the House and Senate have different versions of the General Government budget. We encourage you to contact your legislators and have drafted talking points to use when having those conversations. You can find...

In disappointing news for local government leaders, last week as part of the Executive Budget recommendation, the President proposed a cap on the tax exemption on municipal bonds. This goes against the President’s call for an increase in our nation’s infrastructure investment, as the tax exempt status of these bonds...