Inside 208

Happy New Year! Or is it too late to say that? Find out by listening to our latest installment of the Michigan Municipal League's first Monday Morning Live broadcast of 2019. We recorded it Monday, Jan. 7, and talked about the final days of the Lame Duck legislative session, what...

When the Legislature wrapped up the 2017-18 session in the morning hours of Friday, December 21st, most of the legislators, staff, and lobbyists had no idea that this lame duck session had set records for the amount of bill activity. When the House and Senate adjourned that morning, following the...

The Governor was able to find just enough votes to secure $69 million annually to fund his Renew Michigan Proposal. The final proposal does not increase tipping fees and does not negatively impact municipal budgets. HB 4991 reduces the amount of income tax revenue earmarked to the School Aid Fund [...]

The Michigan Department of Treasury has asked that the following information be shared with League members: Fiscal year 2018 reports, such as the audit report, Annual Local Unit Fiscal Report (F65 Report), and the Retirement System Annual Report (Form 5572) for local units of government with a fiscal year ending [...]

UPDATE: This bill is on the House agenda today (Dec., 20, 2018) as a potential addition so it is very important that you contact your state Representative today and tell them to vote against this legislation. The Michigan Municipal League needs your urgent help TODAY to oppose a bill that [...]

Legislation that would institute the Governor’s proposed water fee has passed the House by a vote of 60-49. A substitute to HB 5898 was adopted in committee and stripped the bill of the proposed fee increase. The bill now creates a Rebuild Michigan Fund, directs the Department of Treasury to [...]

Our third Monday Morning Live is in the can, as they say! Watch it here now. We heard your comments about the sound quality and we listened. For this episode, we have much better sound than we have had for our last two shows. So, we hope this episode is [...]

Legislation that would institute the Governor’s proposed water fee was a last minute addition the to the House Appropriation Committee agenda this afternoon. A substitute to HB 5898 was adopted but the committee stripped the bill of the proposed fee increase. The bill now creates a Rebuild Michigan Fund, directs [...]

Yesterday in the House local government committee SB 1188, the “Vegetation Removal Preemption Act” aka the tree bill, was on the agenda. The committee hearing ended without a vote being taken because the legislation lacked support from committee members to move it. This was a small victory, but the push to oppose [...]

Following months of advocacy and committee discussion, the House Tax Policy committee reported two bills this morning that would shift the cost burden for the disabled veteran property tax exemption from local governments to the state. During this morning’s hearing, two new versions of House Bills 4985 and 4986 were [...]