Inside 208

House Bill 5397, a bill creating the Municipal Utility Residential Clean Energy Program Act, received a committee hearing in the Senate Energy and Technology committee today.  This would enable municipalities that own electric utilities to establish a program to help provide financing to residential property owners for energy efficiency projects. [...]

Today, the Senate Energy and Technology reported out of committee SB 493, a bill dealing with amateur radio operations.  As it was introduced, it had a significant impact on local control and zoning.  However, through a workgroup process, the bill was made significantly better (substitute found here: SB 493 S2 [...]

Have you been involved in NLC before but want to take it to a new level? Are you considering expanding your professional involvement for the first time? If you are a member city of NLC, now is the time to submit an application! The incoming NLC President will appoint chairs [...]

This Thursday, September 18th from 1-2 pm the State and Local Legal Center will be hosting a webinar on the legal issues raised by EPA’s proposed rule to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants. This webinar will be particularly helpful to those who are in the process of [...]

Earlier this year the Michigan Supreme Court held in People v. Cunningham that a court may impose costs in a criminal case only if those costs are authorized by statute. This decision has a huge impact on courts across Michigan including our district courts. The House Judiciary Committee passed House [...]

Rep. Eileen Kowall plans to introduce legislation this week (draft of that legislation can be found here:TIF Draft 1 (2)) making significant changes to TIF districts.  Also available is a copy of the PowerPoint that was used to present the over all plan (with not a lot of detailed specifics): Tax Increment [...]

Yesterday morning the House Financial Liabilities Reform Committee passed Senate Bill 922, a bill to extend the sunset for bonding for other post employment benefits (OPEB) and the costs of switching from defined benefit to defined contribution. This is an option for communities with a AA credit rating. The sunset [...]

This afternoon the House Oversight Committee heard testimony on HB 5580, legislation that would amend the Open Meetings Act (OMA) to require minutes of meetings to be more detailed. The legislation would require minutes to detail how each member voted. If the meeting is not recorded, the minutes would be [...]

Just a reminder that Treasury Form 5192 to claim reimbursement for millage levied in July 2014 for the debt loss/school debt loss from the personal property 2014 small taxpayer exemption loss is due by September 5. Forms returned by September 5 should be processed for October 2014 reimbursement. To be [...]

The State’s Fiscal Year 2015 budget includes grants for financially distressed cities, villages and townships. Applications for that program are now posted on the Department of Treasury’s website. Any city or village currently experiencing at least one condition of “probable financial distress,” as enumerated in the Local Financial Stability and [...]