I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
Gov. Jennifer Granholm decided to delay a $127 per pupil cut to K-12 funding that she ordered in addition to the $165 per pupil cut that was passed by the state legislature in October. She ordered the additional cuts because there was a $100 million unfunded mandate in the education funding bill and the Treasury Department were forecasting lower revenues than originally expected.
But now the governor says that revenues have been better than expected, allowing her to delay that particular cut until after the regular January revenue forecasting conference:
Among the reasons for the delay:
• The state took in $100 million more than expected in commercial property tax partly because the struggling economy is causing many businesses to change hands and when the property is sold it moves up to a higher taxable rate, said state Treasurer Robert Kleine.
• Belt-tightening school districts spent about $50 million less in aid than expected. Much of that came from unspent special education money, said state Budget Director Robert Emerson.
• Revenue from the lottery powerball game is coming in about $30 million above expectations.
This is good news, but the schools are still facing hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts in the middle of the school year even without these specific cuts.
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