LANSING - The Michigan Legislature began its final push Tuesday on passing a series of education reform measures in hopes of winning $400 million in federal funds for schools through President Barack Obama's "Race to the Top" program. In the Senate, the Education Committee approved bills that would enable the state to take over failing
ANN ARBOR - Although the Legislature receives outstanding short-term analysis from its House and Senate Fiscal agencies, it needs a similar nonpartisan arm with a more long-term approach, an economist said Friday. Timothy Bartik, senior economist for the Kalamazoo-based W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, said Washington state has had success with this approach and
LANSING - In a move to stave off some of the budget cuts hitting K-12 schools, the Michigan House approved a supplemental Thursday that would tap federal stimulus funds and yet-to-be-approved state revenues in order to reduce the governor's $127 per-student proration and restore funding for higher-funded schools and early education programs. Gov. Jennifer Granholm
LANSING - About $6.9 million in funding for horse racing programs vetoed by Gov. Jennifer Granholm would be restored under a bill that passed the Senate on Thursday. The bill (HB 4311 ) replaces all but $1.7 million of the funding Granholm vetoed in the 2009-10 fiscal year budget for those programs. It uses money
WASHINGTON DC - For the last decade or so, Internet service providers have been dealing with requests to block access to pornographic or copyright-infringing Web sites, or in China, ones that dare to criticize the government. Now a U.S. House of Representatives bill is taking the unusual step of requiring Internet providers to block access
LANSING - A package of economic development reform bills that had been somewhat of a legislative ping-pong between the Michigan House and Senate earlier this year have been sent to conference committees, although no consensus on the package has been reached. Rep. Fred Miller (D-Mount Clemens), who is co-chairing the panels, said Tuesday that getting
DETROIT - When the new Detroit City Council convenes in January, a majority of the nine-member body will be new as voters ousted another incumbent in Tuesday's elections, but voters decisively re-elected Mayor Dave Bing. Voters also approved changing the election of the council to districts from the current at-large, elected a charter commission to
LANSING - Credits given for brownfield redevelopment, job growth and research and development are essential to boosting Michigan's economy and allowing communities to reinvent themselves, officials from the Michigan Municipal League and Michigan Manufacturers Association said Wednesday as they urged legislators not to support reductions to the credits. The testimony was the second before the
LANSING - The monthly index of manufacturing activity in the Midwest showed that it increased in September over August and was spurred in large part by a pickup of automotive related manufacturing, the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank said Monday. Even with the increase, the report showed that manufacturing in the states it follows was down
LANSING - A total of 72 percent of jobless workers who went through the state's No Worker Left Behind program were able to either find jobs or hold onto their jobs, a report issued by the Department of Energy, Labor and Economic Growth said. Andy Levin, who oversees the program for the department, said the