Inside 208

Sunday, it emerged that the White House will  be nominating Charlotte, North Carolina Mayor Anthony Foxx for Secretary of the Department of Transportation. Foxx has been Mayor since 2009. Prior to being elected Mayor, he served on City Council beginniing in 2005, where he chaired the Transportation Committee. Summer Minnick [...]

Last week the House Local Government Committee took testimony on tax increment financing districts. The chair (Rep. Amanda Price) wanted to take the opportunity to give committee members an idea of what TIFs were and how they function. The Department of Treasury testified first giving a brief overview of TIFs, their [...]

This week House Tourism Committee took testimony on House Bill 4299 sponsored by Representative Bumstead. This legislation would allow for Counties, Townships, and Municipalities, to adopt ordinances to allow for the use of ORVs on roads under their jurisdiction. The League supports this bill in concept but is working with [...]

The Michigan Municipal League would like to encourage members to attend town hall meetings on transportation funding in your area. This issue remains front and center in the legislature and we have an opportunity to help shape the conversation. It is important that individual legislators hear from you on this [...]

This week the House of Representatives spent a majority of their time amending and passing budget bills. The legislature has yet to come to an agreement on how to raise the $1.2 billion in new funding that Governor Snyder has requested for roads. Representative Pat Summerville was able to pass [...]

This afternoon the House reported the omnibus budget that includes EVIP language. The House did not recommend an increase in EVIP funding. In addition yesterday they removed the language penalizing those communities who had settled contracts between December 2012 and March 28, 2013 before right to work went into effect. [...]

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. [...]

The legislature is one again considering cancer presumption legislation. After being vetoed by Governor Engler in 1998 cancer presumption has returned in some form each legislative session. Yesterday afternoon the Senate Judiciary Committee passed Senate Bill 211, a bill that provides for a cancer presumption for firefighters. The League testified [...]

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 [...]