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Nearly 12 weeks after Michigan’s budget crisis started, the state began a return to normalcy Friday.
Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed the bills to enact the bipartisan supplemental package that restored funding to some of the cuts and transfers she made September 30th.
Money has been restored for rural hospitals, sheriff’s department road patrols, and many educational programs.
The supplemental does not include funding for the nearly $1 million lingering debt that western Upper Peninsula counties owe for pension contributions for employees of the defunct Western Upper Peninsula Manpower Consortium.
State Senator Ed McBroom says those were state employees, who were paid with federal dollars. The state has covered the pension bill for every other region in Michigan, but the western U.P. has been left out… again…
And the bill is growing…
McBroom says the fight isn’t over…
Technically, Gogebic County is on the hook for the entire amount, because it handled the consortium’s finances. Gogebic County is suing the other counties who were in the consortium to collect their shares of the obligation, should the state decide not to pay.
