Inside 208

Governor Snyder recently unveiled his “Marshall Plan” for talent. It’s designed to combat the more than 811,000 career openings that will need to be filled through 2024 in fields that are facing a talent shortage. The plan calls for a $100 million budget injection for a five-year work plan to [...]

Following Governor Snyder’s eighth and final State of the State speech last week, his team has immediately moved into announcement mode, capitalizing on the initiatives he announced during his January 23rd speech to the Legislature. A new announcement is planned for each day this week, in advance of next Wednesday’s [...]

Following the year-end passage of pension/OPEB legislation that implements the recommendations of Governor Snyder’s Responsible Retirement Reform task force report, Treasury released late today the reporting requirement documentation which ended up as the main component of Public Act 202 of 2017. This afternoon’s Treasury announcement is included in Numbered Letter [...]

***UPDATE:    The Michigan House just adjourned session for the day (Tuesday) after adopting a substitute version H-3 for HB 4001 that would reduce the income tax rate from 4.25% down to 3.9% by January 1, 2021 and stopping at that point.  Following hours of caucus and floor discussion, the...

(View more photos here) About 60 local municipal officials from throughout the state were at the state Capitol Thursday in Lansing for the Michigan Municipal League’s Legislative Committee Kick-Off Orientation. The first-time event for the League was highly successful as members from the League’s various legislative policy committees heard from [...]

What’s happening in Flint, Detroit and other cities is a symptom of a larger problem. A problem where cities in Michigan are only allowed to fall with the economy but not to prosper as the economy grows. And it’s only going to get worse if we don’t change the way [...]

The Michigan House and Senate Appropriations committees made their opening moves on the state budget this week by reporting the full budget bills to the floors of their respective chambers. Following expected floor action on these bills in the coming week or two, each chamber will review the other’s proposal and [...]

State Representative Dave Maturen (R-Vicksburg) introduced House Bill 5578 this week (http://legislature.mi.gov/doc.aspx?2016-HB-5578) with the support of the Michigan Municipal League and other local government groups, to address the ongoing crisis of “dark store” property tax appeals. The legislation proposed by Rep. Maturen, was developed following a workgroup process which he [...]

How bad is the municipal finance situation in Michigan? It’s the worse in the nation over the last decade, according to new data unveiled at a Michigan Municipal League news conference Monday, March 21. And the culprit? State policies and politicians who have ignored the needs of cities, in the process [...]

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Michigan Municipal League CEO and Executive Director Dan Gilmartin and fellow municipal leaders from across the nation called for a partnership between cities, states and the federal government to improve the country’s ailing infrastructure. Gilmartin participated in a panel discussion at the Congressional Capitol Briefing earlier today (March [...]