Inside 208

The Senate Regulatory Reform committee passed HB 5011, which amends the State Construction Code Act to allow a governmental subdivision to contract with a private organization to operate its building department. Currently, some communities use outside companies to operate building departments, but this practice has been called into question. There...

Governor Snyder’s Special Message on Infrastructure has resulted in 19 bills. The 19 bill package was introduced and has both Republican and Democrat sponsors. Below is a brief summary on some of the bills that are in the package. A bill to convert the fuel taxes to a wholesale tax by...

In December the Michigan Governor Rick Snyder signed into law changes to the Urban Cooperation Act and related statutes. These laws, Public Acts 261, 262 and 263 of 2011, are designed to remove barriers to municipal service sharing and cooperation. The Michigan Municipal League has put together a one-pager with...

Three new communities recently engaged the Michigan Municipal League for executive searches for city/village managers. These are the Village of Spring Lake (2,514) on the southwestern side of the Lower Peninsula; Essexville (3,766) in the “thumb” area and Iron River (pop. 3,386) in the Upper Peninsula. The Michigan Municipal League...

SB 130, a bill that would reduce, from six to three, the number of unpaid parking tickets that trigger driver license sanctions from the Secretary of State is scheduled to be on the House floor this Wednesday and Thursday. Final passage of this bill on Thursday would then send the...

The Governor has announced that 27 communities throughout the state will receive $4.3 million in grants through the Economic Vitality Incentive Program.   The funding will be used by local units to help offset costs associated with service sharing or consolidation or other cooperative efforts. You’ll recall that the EVIP program...

The National League of Cities, in cooperation with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), is holding a webinar this Wednesday, January 25th for local governments to better understand how to use the new National Broadband Map tool The NBM tool was put in place for communities to determine the level...

During Governor Snyder’s second State of the State speech last night he discussed a few issues of importance to local communities. Personal Property Tax: Governor Snyder mentioned the need to eliminate the PPT, but also mentioned the great importance of local communities and the services they provide.  He called for...