In December of 2012 Public Act 506 was enacted that required local road agencies to certify the the Michigan Department of Transportation that the had developed and publicized an employee compensation plan or were in compliance with with PA 152 of 2011. The law requires a local road agency to maintain a searchable website accessible by the public at no cost that includes the following: a) current fiscal year budget, b) the number of active transportation employees of the local road agency by job classification and wage rate, c) information on financial performance, d) the names and contact information for the governing body of the local road agency, and e) a copy of the certification mentioned above. Compliance with these provisions needs to take place no later than September 30, 2014.
The League has advocated that certifying to MDOT that we are in compliance with PA 152, which by law we are required to be in compliance with, is redundant, unnecessary, and an inefficient use of time. We have also advocated that the creation of another dashboard is unnecessary because of the public access to our current EVIP dashboards, F65 Forms, audits, and our comprehensive annual financial reports.
As a result Senator Casperson introduced SB 882 that would repeal the provisions section 18j for cities and villages. This bill was take up before the full Senate today and vote out with nearly unanimous support. This bill now moves to the House where we are hopeful that progress will continue to be made and these unnecessary requirements will be repealed before the implementation date of September 30, 2014.
John LaMacchia is a Legislative Associate for the League handling transportation and infrastructure issues. He can be reached at jlamacchia@mml.org or 517-908-0303