Senate Advances Critical Legislation, House Makes Unprecedented Cuts 

The Michigan Senate passed several Detroit Regional Chamber priorities this week, advancing key economic development legislation, improvements to the Michigan Reconnect program, and protecting the Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund. The Michigan House Appropriations Committee utilized a rarely used tool to unilaterally eliminate specific work projects from the budget, with an estimated $644.9 million in cuts.

The Senate passed Senate Bill 723 in a bipartisan fashion. This bill is a critical piece of legislation that significantly expands Michigan’s brownfield redevelopment program by increasing the total program’s tax capture cap from $1.6 billion to $3.5 billion, providing the necessary resources to support large-scale transformational projects.

This expansion is vital for the Detroit Region, as it is expected to facilitate the massive redevelopment of the Renaissance Center in Detroit and the repurposing of Lakeside Mall in Macomb County. These sites have the potential to drive significant economic activity but require substantial investment to overcome redevelopment challenges. The bill now moves to the House, where the Chamber will continue advocating for its passage to ensure these projects can proceed.

The Senate also unanimously passed Senate Bill 700, which waives the repayment of unemployment benefits paid in error during the COVID-19 pandemic. The bill focuses on administrative errors made between February 2020 and September 2021, ensuring that claimants who received benefits through no fault of their own are not penalized for these errors.

The Chamber thanks its members and business leaders who contacted their state senators on this issue last week, highlighting the issues SB 700 would have imposed on Michigan businesses. With this, the Chamber was able to negotiate key amendments and lead negotiations with legislators on Tuesday. Crucially, the final version of the bill preserves the Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund, ensuring that the cost of these waivers does not trigger a tax increase on Michigan employers.

Lastly, the Senate moved bills to expand the Michigan Reconnect program to include Michiganders aged 21 and older, instead of those 25 years old or older. Reconnect provides “non-traditional” students who are returning to education to receive a skill certificate or degree at no cost. The expansion of this highly successful program will increase the number of degrees in Michigan and boost the state’s skilled workforce.

In an unprecedented move, the Michigan House used a rarely used procedure to surgically remove specific work projects from the 2024-25 budget. A work project is a budget item that received funding from the previous fiscal year but has not spent the entire appropriation, requiring an extension into the next fiscal year. By law, both the Senate and the House have the ability to deny work project requests from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

The House targeted several projects impacting the Region’s economy, including funding for Reconnect career navigators, Lake Michigan Circuit, the Office of Future Mobility Electrification, the Office of Global Michigan, the Michigan Innovation Fund, and the Make it in Michigan Competitiveness Fund.

The Chamber will continue to advocate for funding in supplemental budget appropriations and in the full appropriations process for programs and funding that will benefit Michigan.