Yesterday the House and Senate introduced a package of bills that would provide additional flexibility at the local level and allow for local gas taxes and registration fees. A total of 21 bills were introduced yesterday that impact both MDOT and local agencies. We are currently reviewing each bill, but are excited about the potential to have more local control over the way we fund and fix our infrastructure. Below is a short description of each bill.<\/p>\n
HB 4963 (O\u2019Malley) – Local Option Fuel Tax:<\/strong> Allows counties to levy a local option fuel tax by a vote of the people. The tax collected will be distributed by population and actual road miles to other local road agencies within the county boundaries.<\/p>\n HB 4964 (Sneller) – Local Option Registration Tax:<\/strong> Allows counties to levy a local option registration fee by a vote of the people. The fees collected will be distributed by population and actual road miles to other local road agencies within the county boundaries.<\/p>\n HB 4965 (Schroeder) – Asset Management Spending \u2013 Counties:<\/strong> Provide more flexibility to county road agencies so they are no longer constrained to \u201c75% on primary roads\u201d and \u201c25% on local roads.\u201d Counties wouldn\u2019t be constrained by these limits; instead, they would simply need to have and follow an approved asset management plan.<\/p>\n HB 4966 (Wakeman) – Asset Management Spending \u2013 Cities and Villages:<\/strong> Provide more flexibility to municipal road agencies so they are no longer constrained to \u201c75% on primary roads\u201d and \u201c25% on local roads.\u201d Cities and Villages wouldn\u2019t be constrained by these limits; instead, they would simply need to have and follow an approved asset management plan.<\/p>\n HB 4967 (Mueller) – Prequalification Reform:<\/strong> Change MDOT prequalification limitations by eliminating prequalification for sub-contractors hired for landscaping, seeding, sodding, or stone work for projects under $10 million and for projects above $10 million all contractors need to be prequalified<\/p>\n HB 4968 (Markkanen) – Update Snow Maintenance Formula:<\/strong> Revise the distribution for snow removal based on the immediately preceding 14 calendar years, instead of \u201cbefore 1987.\u201d<\/p>\n HB 4969 (Yancey) – Construction Work time reform:<\/strong> Prohibits MDOT and the local road agencies from contractually restricting road-building times and requires that all road projects be put out for bid no later than the last fiscal quarter of the fiscal year prior to work beginning on a project. Further, the bill does provide an exemption from the bid requirement in emergency situations. Lastly, the bill allows local governments to consider \u201cresponsive and responsible best value bidder\u201d as well as \u201clow bid\u201d when selecting contracts.<\/p>\n HB 4970 (Bellino) – Alternative Delivery Methods: <\/strong>Creation of a Michigan Alternative Project Delivery Act which provides a regulatory structure for new delivery methods.<\/p>\n HB 4971 (Alexander) – Asset Management Road Right-Sizing:<\/strong> Requires the Transportation Asset Management Council (TAMC) to evaluate roads throughout the state for \u201cright-sizing\u201d and work with the state and local road agencies to ensure our infrastructure is not overbuilt.<\/p>\n HB 4972 (Leutheuser) – Reform Registration: <\/strong>Move away from an ad-valorem system and impose a $40 base fee with an additional tiered MPG fee (MPG Fees – 0-10 <\/strong>-$30 ($70 total); 11-20 <\/strong>– $40 ($80 total); 21-30 <\/strong>– $75 ($105 total); 31-40 <\/strong>– $120 ($160 total); 40+ <\/strong>– $200 ($240 total); Full Electric <\/em><\/strong>– $250 ($290 total)<\/em>). All MPG Fees indexed to inflation every 5 years.<\/p>\n HB 4973 (Glenn) – Local Bridge Collaboration: <\/strong>Allow for the transfer and\/or collaborative sharing of local bridge design, construction, and\/or operations with MDOT.<\/p>\n SB 515 <\/strong>(Barrett): <\/strong>Requires MDOT to develop a road construction inflation index to measure changes in cost within the highway construction industry annually.<\/p>\n SB 516 <\/strong>(Barrett): <\/strong>Would extend the requirement for local asset management reports to be for 6 years, not the current 3 years, and codify state reporting requirements, such as the 5-year plan and the long-range plan.<\/p>\n SB 517 <\/strong>(Bizon): <\/strong>Require MDOT to study tolling Michigan bridges on roadways.<\/p>\n SB 518 <\/strong>(MacDonald): <\/strong>Direct federal funds to MDOT so that non-federal funds can be directed to local agencies.<\/p>\n SB 519 <\/strong>(Runestad): <\/strong>Direct non-federal funds to local agencies, making them “whole”.<\/p>\n SB 520 <\/strong>(Outman): <\/strong>Amends the specifics of state and local warranty programs by raising the dollar amount of which projects need to be warrantied, also revokes a company’s prequalification if they have outstanding warranty work that needs to be done and they aren’t making progress toward addressing it in certain situations.<\/p>\n