Tagged: funding

Governor Snyder says he wants more than a billion dollars just this year to pay for road and bridge repairs.

Our state has seriously bad roads that lawmakers in Lansing appear to agree on.

How to pay for road repairs is a whole other story.

We’ve talked a lot on Stateside about the different options to raise the money for these repairs.

Many Republicans appear unwilling to vote for any increase in taxes.  Amidst facing a possible primary challenge, would Republicans consider voting for any possible legislation?

There have also been concerns that this funding increase would mean local governments and schools would lose upwards of $850 million in funding.

For months, Governor Snyder has been trying to get support from lawmakers, but we haven’t seen a whole lot of progress on how to increase funding.

Recently, a state House committee has begun hearings on a road funding strategy.

Chris Gautz is the capitol correspondent for Crain's Detroit Business. He sat down with us on Stateside to give us the details of the new proposal and how exactly it would work.

Listen to the full interview above.

People who are working on cleaning up the Great Lakes got some good news this week. After months of negotiations, the 2012 federal budget contains $300 million for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative.

That money will be used to clean up pollution, deal with invasive species and restore wildlife habitat. A lot of these projects are already underway.

Jeff Skelding is the campaign director for the Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition. He says in a time when many budgets are getting slashed, funding for Great Lakes cleanup will remain steady.

“We have pretty much full support from both Republicans and Democrats in the Great Lakes Congressional delegation. I mean, they see the wisdom of infusing federal funding into the region, not only to clean up the Lakes which of course is very important, but the ancillary benefit we get from that is the economic benefits of investing these funds.”

The budget also includes more than $500 million to help Great Lakes states upgrade their aging sewer systems. When it rains, the sewers often get overloaded, and raw sewage can wash up on beaches.