The Michigan House of Representatives this week passed a road funding plan that is estimated to provide an additional $1 to $1.2 billion annually for roads and bridges in Michigan. The plan relies heavily on existing state spending and redistributing revenues. Over $700 million of the total proposal comes from redistributing current general fund dollars. There is very little new revenue included in the House proposed plan, however, it does statutorily dedicate over $1 billion towards transportation and has an inflationary increase component to the existing gas tax.
The various bills associated with the House plan all passed on party lines, having no Democratic support. The package of bills now goes to the Senate, where members have been meeting behind closed doors to come up with their own road funding plan. Publicly, leadership in the Senate has said that there are potentially parts of the House plan that they could pass in their chamber, but that the plan falls short of a comprehensive plan relying too much on future unknowns. Discussions on adding new revenues in a variety of ways continue to be held amongst Senate leaders.
It’s anticipated that there will be some sort of public response from Senate leadership by the end of June and that potentially the Senate could take some action over the summer. The House has recently revised their summer schedule and has set some dates in July and August for the full House to meet. This leaves the door open for potential action by the House if the Senate does in fact add new revenue to their road funding plan. One thing is clear, there is a desire by all parties concerned to get something finalized for a long-term comprehensive plan this summer.
For any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact Mike Nystrom, Executive Vice President, at mikenystrom@mi-ita.com or Lance Binoniemi, Vice President of Government Affairs, at lancebinoniemi@mi-ita.com.
