Unused bond funds would be put to work in local communities
\nHouse Bills 55674 through 5676, sponsored by Reps. Al Pscholka, Peter MacGregor, Eileen Kowall and Paul Opsommer, take $654 million in decade-old unused bond funding and create a grant program for local governments.
\nThe bond funding was approved by voters in Proposal 2 of 2002 and has gone unused despite the state’s ongoing bond payments.
\n“Having this money rot in a bank account instead of putting it to its intended use is poor stewardship of taxpayer dollars and the public’s interest,” said Pscholka, R-Stevensville. “This legislation will help communities plan ahead and invest in infrastructure projects that will keep sewer and water quality systems up-to-date.”
\nUnder the legislation, local communities can apply for grants to assist in planning for improvements to water quality and sewage collecting and treatment systems, as well as pollution prevention efforts.
\n“Making these funds available to our local communities will allow them to address infrastructure issues instead of putting problems off until it’s too late,” said MacGregor, R-Rockford. “This unused state funding will be a blessing to those governments looking to avoid more costly fixes in the future.”
\nThe bill package looks to simplify the application process and remove administrative burdens, which Kowall says obstruct or delay attempts to utilize the funds.
\n“A properly functioning infrastructure is essential to the success of local communities and this legislation will allow municipalities to more easily tap into existing funds to plan ahead and keep water, sewage and pollution programs in good shape,” said Kowall, R-White Lake Township.
\nOpsommer said failure to pass the legislation could make a big problem even bigger.
\n“Without these bills, water quality will continue to degrade and sewers will continue to deteriorate,” said Opsommer, R-DeWitt. “For communities, this would mean financial problems, health problems, environmental problems and more.”
\nThe bill package was referred to the House Committee on Local, Intergovernmental and Regional Affairs. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Unused bond funds would be put to work in local communities<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stjindy.com\/archive1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stjindy.com\/archive1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stjindy.com\/archive1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stjindy.com\/archive1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stjindy.com\/archive1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stjindy.com\/archive1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29098\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stjindy.com\/archive1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stjindy.com\/archive1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stjindy.com\/archive1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}