Thursday, February 13, 2014

Legislative Update Week of February 10, 2014

Budget is the word on the street with both chambers a buzz about the upcoming budget season in Lansing. The official start of the season was on February 6th, when Governor Snyder presented his recommendations for that state budget for the coming fiscal year. This past week state departments started to get down to the individuals budgets for the departments and meeting with their respective appropriations subcommittees. Director Jim Haveman of the Department of Community Health delivered the budget message for to the House and Senate this week. Let's review those messages:

Governor's Budget Message:


Slide from Governor Snyder's Budget Presentation.
Both House and Senate Appropriations members gathered in the House Appropriations committee chambers to hear what message the Governor was going to bring to the legislature on the coming fiscal year. The Governor spent the start of his message reviewing the past three years that the Governor has had the reigns in Michigan. His message of Michigan being the come back state seemed to become the tag line that every member of the committee left with.

In the health arena the Governor wanted to focus new money on the following:
  • An investment of $71.7 million for the Healthy Michigan Plan to implement expanded Medicaid coverage.
  • $15.7 million in gross funding to expand the Healthy Kids Dental program into Kalamazoo and Macomb counties, providing an additional 100,000 children with good dental care.
  • A total of $15.6 million to support the initiatives as recommended in the Mental Health Commission final report that was issued Jan. 2.
The Governors Mental Health Commission had recently reviewed their findings from their hard work to a joint meeting of the House and Senate Health Policy committees a few weeks ago but from that meeting there was no talk of what the Governor wanted in terms of funding for program, with the presentation of the budget lawmakers found out how much some of the efforts of the commission was going to cost. 

The Healthy Michigan Plan along with Healthy Kids Dental both saw bumps in funding as well, as the Governor continues his push to expand coverage for health care and dental care for children in Michigan. Moving away from health the Governor also talked about road funding and a need for an increase in funding and toted a funding increase for schools that is directed to the classroom. You can see the governor's presentation here

Director Haveman's Presentation:

Director Haveman had the daunting task of breaking down the budget for his department, providing both the House and Senate a presentation of the accomplishments of the current fiscal year and what the road map for the coming fiscal year looked like for the department. The Governor in his state of the state address said that he wanted to make Michigan a "no wait" state for certain services. The Department of Community Health Houses some of those services, lets review the recommendations for the coming year:
Slide from Director Haveman's Presentation.
  • Overall Budget: $17.4 Billion Gross / $2.9 Billion General Fund (GF)
  • Mental Health and Wellness Commission - $15.6 Million Gross
  • Jail Diversion Initiatives - $3.4 Million (DCH Investment)
  • Child and Adolescent Health Services Pilot - $2 Million Gross/GF
  • Home visitation in rural areas - $2.5 Million Gross/GF
  • Crime Victim Grants - $1 Million Gross (From Crime Victim Fees)
  • Make Michigan a “no wait state” for senior home delivered meals and in home services - $5 Million Gross/GF
  • Increase Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) site options - $16.4 Million Gross / $5.7 Million GF 
  • Make Michigan a “no wait state” for the MiChoice Home and Community Based Waiver Program - $26.4 Million Gross / $9 Million GF
  • Prevent Elder Abuse - $1 Million Gross/GF
  • 2013 and 2014 Primary care rate increases to physicians - $75.5 Million  gross / $26 Million GF investment continues one half of the rate increase 
  • Healthy Kids Dental expansion - $15.7 Million Gross / $5.4 Million GF
You can see the full presentation delivered by the director here. Graduate Medical Education was a topic that briefly touched upon in the committee. It is expected that further discussion on the administrations direction with the budget will come when the Medical Services or Medicaid will report to the committee in the coming weeks. 

The budget hearing will continue through  February and March. Stay with MSMS to get the latest up to date news on the budget process and more as issues break at http://www.msms.org/advocacy . 

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Legislative Update Week of January 20, 2014

With an overhaul and update of the blogging site, the MSMS Legislative Update is back up and running again and we are happy to provide the latest up to date happenings in Lansing and beyond. This month we find the legislature facing it's final year of the term, leaving law making playing second fiddle to the upcoming campaigns ahead of the lawmakers. This also means the timetables are accelerated which leaves the possibility of a state budget being done before the start of June. Lets review the happenings of the legislature over the past couple weeks.

Consensus Revenue Estimating Conference:

The month started out, as per usual, with the two fiscal agencies and the Michigan Department of Treasury coming together to sign an agreement on the amount of tax dollars the state will have to spend in the coming fiscal year and how the economy in Michigan is looking and will look in the future. All parties agreed that Michigan is continuing its financial recovery at a slow up strong pace. Current new starts of homes are continuing to rise in Michigan and are projected to continue on that upswing. Good news for those working and those looking for jobs with the personal wealth of people continues to rise and unemployment is projected to fall leaving people with work and more money in their pockets.

As for the state's coffers those continue to rise as well. Tax reforms done by the legislature with the cutting of the Earned Income Tax Credit, modifying the homestead tax credit, and the elimination of the child deduction, Michigan will decrease it's tax expenditures by $2.5 Billion for FY 13-14 (courtesy of the Senate Fiscal Agency). This for the coming fiscal year law makers found out that they will have an additional $474 Million to appropriate. Some are calling for a tax refund, some would like to see road work, some would like to see the tax deductions put back into place, but it will be a wait and see until the Governor releases his budget recommendation to see where the money ends up going. Click on the link to see the final estimates.

State of the State Address:

Governor Snyder delivering fourth State of the State Address.
Courtesy of MLIVE.
On January 16th Governor Rick Snyder presented his report to the legislature on the report card of Michigan. The speech started out with a review the past three years of the Governor's term talking about the points that he was proud of accomplishing including the safe sleep initiative, a policy move that MSMS supports. From there Governor Snyder moved towards his agenda on what he wanted to do yet and really started laying out his campaign platform for the coming elections. Here is a great breakdown from our multi-client lobbyists at Capitol Strategies Group:

The Governor presented his annual State of the State address Thursday evening in Lansing in front of a packed House chambers on a snowy night in Lansing. Many of the pundits in Lansing concluded the speech lacked many specifics, but below is excerpts from the speech released by the Governor’s press office.

  • Snyder will create the Michigan Office for New Americans, which will drive strategies for attracting immigrants to Michigan. Snyder also is urging Congress to approve Michigan’s application to become only the second state with a state sponsored EB-5 visa regional center. The EB-5 is a tool for attracting investment and creating jobs for U.S. workers.
  • Stepping up efforts to connect job providers and talent. The governor this year again will host economic and education summits to foster greater collaboration between the private sector and education community.
  • Expanding the Michigan Advanced Technician Training (MAT2) program, an employer-driven initiative that helps employers bridge the “skills gap” through a statewide system for training and educating skilled technicians to fill high-paying jobs. Henry Ford Community College and Oakland Community College will serve as pilot locations for the program, which is a unique model that also includes best practices from Germany.
  • Continuing the successful Community Ventures program, a public/private/nonprofit partnership created to hire at least 1,000 structurally unemployed residents from distressed neighborhoods, initially in the cities of Flint, Detroit, Pontiac and Saginaw. First-year goals have been met, resulting in jobs for over 1,400 structurally unemployed residents.
  • Supporting small businesses through creative partnerships. Under the Pure Michigan Micro Lending Initiative, Huntington Bank has committed $5 million for a pilot program in Detroit to help small businesses grow. Upon its successful completion, Huntington will commit $20 million more to be distributed through lines of credit to community micro lenders. Under another initiative, the 10,000 Small Businesses program, Goldman Sachs announced a $20 million partnership to help entrepreneurs in Detroit by providing access to education, financial and business support services.

21st Century Education

Ensuring that Michigan’s education system is indeed a 21st century system that reflects the needs of this technology age. This includes:

  • Encouraging schools to consider a voluntary program in which they would extend classes year-round, rather than interrupting student learning with a three-month summer break. It can take weeks for many children to recover the information they learned prior to leaving for the traditional summer vacation, which delays the learning of new material. Under this concept, students still would get shorter breaks throughout the summer. Snyder applauded the Legislature’s bipartisan effort to explore this concept and urged further action.
  • Providing a uniform definition of “truancy” to schools across the state. Doing so will result in greater consistency and will provide educators, human service providers, judges and police with ample opportunities to customize assistance to families so that the number of truants can be reduced.
  • Implementing recommendations of the Michigan Council for Educator Effectiveness. The council recommended a fair and rigorous means to evaluate the skills of teachers using a combination of observed classroom practice and measured student growth.
  • Making Michigan a leader in promoting STEM programs in schools and colleges. Jobs are robust in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math. Michigan must do a better job of aligning education with economic trends and inevitability.

Quality of Life

Improving the quality of life in our communities, as well as for seniors, and residents with special needs. The governor said:

  • Michigan should become a “no wait state” for seniors who qualify for home delivered meals and in-home services. Nearly 4,500 seniors are not receiving the in-home services including home-delivered meals that they need. In Southeastern Michigan, half of the people qualifying for services must wait six months or more to receive services. The governor will propose additional funding in his recommended budget to eliminate this waiting list. The governor also announced that he will prepare a special message outlining opportunities to reinvent the way in which Michigan provides services to seniors.
  • Lawmakers should pass pending bills that provide consumer protections for seniors.
  • Adopting recommendations of the Mental Health and Wellness Report will help people with mental illness, substance abuse disorders or developmental disabilities to lead more independent lives. Recommendations include developing a Pure Michigan marketing strategy to highlight opportunities for families living with disabilities, and having Michigan join the “Spread the Word to End the Word” movement, which seeks to rid our vocabulary of derogatory terms regarding people dealing with mental illness.
  • Michigan should enact laws that provide school safety drill recommendations, and encourage schools to report on completion of the drills to the state. Snyder will propose funding in the upcoming budget for school safety initiatives.
  • The quality of life for nearly half-a-million Michiganders will be enhanced now that the federal government has approved the Healthy Michigan Plan. By improving access to affordable health care coverage, Healthy Michigan also will reduce uncompensated care that shifts costs onto businesses and taxpayers.
  • Significant progress is being made in reducing the crime rates in Pontiac, Detroit, Saginaw and Flint. While the rates remain unacceptably high, it’s clear that the state and local partnership under the Secure Cities Initiative is having an impact. In the first 10 months of 2013, violent crimes declined by 30 percent in Flint; 16 percent in Saginaw; 7 percent in Detroit and 6.5 percent in Pontiac.

Protecting Our Environment and Natural Resources

Ensuring the protection of Michigan’s natural resources while allowing for their wise use, the governor called for:

  • Increasing the state’s effort to combat invasive species, which cause environmental damage, as well as economic harm in excess of $4 billion annually across the Great Lakes region. The governor will recommend funding in the new fiscal year to implement a program aimed at preventing the introduction and spread of both aquatic and terrestrial invasive species. The program was developed through a partnership with the DNR, Department of Environmental Quality and Department of Agriculture and Rural Development.
  • Using the information gathered last year through numerous public forums to develop a framework for the comprehensive energy policy that Michigan needs. In December 2013, Snyder used that information to set the stage for critical discussions on Michigan’s energy needs as they relate to adaptability, affordability and reliability.

Good Government

Continuing with the reinvention of state government so that it is customer-focused and delivers the best possible service. The governor proposed that:

  • Michigan should join other states in passing a resolution that supports a Federal Balanced Budget Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Unlike Michigan, Washington still lacks the fiscal discipline to balance its budget, which hampers the nation’s economic turnaround. Passing this amendment sends a strong signal to Washington that fiscal responsibility is needed for the good of working families and all taxpayers, as well as future generations of Americans.
  • The state enhance its “early warning system” to assist communities and schools facing financial instability. Creating strong financial intervention teams, housed within the departments of Treasury and Education, will allow for earlier intervention strategies. This is in the best interests of children and taxpayers.
  • While continuing to be fiscally responsible in the short and long term, it is appropriate to provide some tax relief to hard-working families. Michigan has come a long way in three years. The state’s fiscal health has improved due to the tough but necessary decisions that have been made. The governor will make an FY 15 budget recommendation that eases the burden on low- and middle-income families so that they can continue to share in Michigan’s comeback.


The state now looks ahead with the Governor's budget message on the horizon to start working to get the budget done before their self imposed deadline of June 1.

MSMS will continue to follow the activities of the budget and other areas. Find all of that information at http://www.msms.org/advocacy. Your support helps us get the policies you want passed by the legislature. Go to http://www.mdpac.org to see how you can help!