2025-26 MI Senate Reg Affairs Cmte Dec 2: MI Strategic Fund economic development, Jobs for MI Program, revenue distribution earmark

Agenda revised at 11 am. If you see healthcare impact in the new bills, please comment.

Tuesday, December 2, 2025    2:30 p.m.

AGENDA

SB 198 Sen. Singh Occupations: vehicles, dealers, and repair facilities; requirements for automobile dealer data collection; provide for.

Pending Re-Referral:

SB 472 Sen. Singh Individual income tax: revenue distributions; earmark of withholding tax capture revenues into the more jobs for Michigan fund; provide for.

SB 473 Sen. Singh Economic development: Michigan strategic fund; more jobs for Michigan program; create.

Pending Introduction and Referral:

SB 721 Sen. Moss Economic development: commercial redevelopment; commercial redevelopment act; modify.

SB 722 Sen. Cavanagh Economic development; commercial redevelopment; commercial rehabilitation act; modify.

And any other business properly before the committee.

Celebrating post #1000! (My personal count. The Forum is well over 2000.)

Tuesday, December 9, 2025     9:30 a.m.

AGENDA

SB 472    Sen. Singh    Individual income tax: revenue distributions; earmark of withholding tax capture revenues into the more jobs for Michigan fund; provide for.

SB 473    Sen. Singh   Economic development: Michigan strategic fund; more jobs for Michigan program; create.

SB 721    Sen. Moss    Economic development: commercial redevelopment; commercial redevelopment act; modify.

SB 722    Sen. Moss    Economic development: commercial redevelopment; commercial rehabilitation act; modify.

And any other business properly before the committee.

Analysis from Mackinac Center's Jessica Wyeth, via email.

This week, director of fiscal policy James Hohman testified in Lansing against a new package of business subsidy bills. The proposal aims to boost growth yet seems more likely to leave taxpayers with a hefty bill and little to show for it.

The bills, SB 472 and 473 raise concerns that companies would be allowed to receive state payments not for creating new jobs, but for keeping the jobs they already have.

We saw how this played out for the Michigan Economic Growth Authority. What started out as a small selective business subsidy program grew into a monster corporate handout program, ballooning from tens of millions to hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

"Lawmakers ought to have standards for determining whether economic development programs are effective," said Hohman in his testimony. "The programs ought to be expected to have a meaningful impact on the state’s economic outcomes."

James Homan's X video: https://x.com/MackinacCenter/status/1995975894645748000

Michigan's abysmal history on job growth, also from Mackinac Center. Excellent inclusions in the original article.

https://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/news/michigan-taxpayers-foot-1-million-bill-for-an-imaginary-job-threat

Michigan taxpayers foot $1 million bill for an imaginary job threat

State pays companies to exist as job growth stagnates

Jamie A. Hope | November 20, 2025

The Michigan Economic Development Corporation gave $1 million to OVD Insurance, a Kent County firm, to keep it from doing more business out-of-state, according to documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.

More than 100 pages of documents obtained by Michigan Capitol Confidential show that 80% of OVD’s clients are in Michigan. The documents did not include evidence that other states or economic development agencies were actively courting the company with incentives to expand elsewhere.

The $1 million taxpayer subsidy will help OVD but hurt competitors who are also based in Michigan, Robert L. Hughes, founder and president of Grand Rapids-based Advantage Benefits Group, told CapCon.

“Where does the MEDC draw the line?” Hughes asked. “Are they giving million-dollar handouts of taxpayer money to every Michigan insurance agency, law firm, and accounting firm that asks to fund a new office?”

The state agency is already under intense scrutiny over alleged secrecy and misuse of taxpayer money.

In its evaluation of the grant application, the economic development agency gave OVD a 69% score for the potential that the company would expand in another state.

But the review appears to rely largely on the company’s assertions rather than independent verification. Records state that OVD has offices or joint ventures in Pittsburgh, Raleigh, Nashville and Dallas.

The documents also say that employees in these offices are remote and mostly serve Michigan clients.

“Approximately 80% of OVD Insurance’s client base is located within Michigan,” the records say.

Yet the insurance company said it was being pressured by out-of-state partners to “add physical space” in other states. No MEDC documents included in the FOIA show the agency followed up on these claims or requested supporting documentation. OVD’s leadership said in the documents that the company has doubled its revenue and workforce over the past five years and expects to double them again over the next five years.

OVD confirmed to CapCon for a previous story that it anticipated job creation under the grant — estimated at 131 positions — but it would include a combination of new hires and reallocation of current employees.

A Dec. 13, 2024, email exchange included in the document CapCon obtained clarifies the company’s workforce numbers.

When the MEDC asked OVD about a recent decrease in the number of its Michigan employees from 120 to 106, Josh VanVels, the company’s chief growth officer, said that the initial figures included remote employees outside Michigan who serve Michigan clients.

The MEDC cautioned against reading too much into the documents.

“There seems to be a broad assumption here that the responsive documents to this single FOIA request represent every bit of due diligence that we do when considering how to develop potential offers and administer grants to best support job creation and retention in Michigan, and that’s not the case,” Danielle Emerson, public relations manager at the organization, wrote in an email to CapCon.

She added that the MEDC balances the need to be competitive with fiscal responsibility when it spends taxpayer dollars.

Michael LaFaive, senior director of fiscal policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, told CapCon that more than three-quarters of corporate expansions would happen without incentives.

“Research shows that 75% to 98% of corporate expansions, relocations and retentions would have happened without incentives,” LaFaive said.

The threat of moving jobs elsewhere if the state fails to provide subsidies has a long tradition dating back to fabled Chrysler head Lee Iacocca.

“In Michigan, Lee Iacocca once bragged about his use of that threat around the world to wrest fiscal favors from government,” said LaFaive. “He said he did it so often he got tired of it.”

“The business subsidy program in question is not required to get company officials to do anything they wouldn’t otherwise do without taxpayer funding,” James Hohman, fiscal policy expert at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, told CapCon.

“Its purpose is to try to make it seem like administrators are winning jobs,” Hohman added.

OVD Insurance did not respond to an email seeking comment for this story.

Tomorrow is Round 3 on the "jobs" bills.

Tuesday, December 16, 2025     3:00 p.m.

AGENDA

SB 472
Sen. Singh
Individual income tax: revenue distributions; earmark of withholding tax capture revenues into the more jobs for Michigan fund; provide for.

SB 473
Sen. Singh
Economic development: Michigan strategic fund; more jobs for Michigan program; create.

And any other business properly before the committee.

I have to add this incisive update: Mackinac Center email on Nov. 21.

A funny thing happened to more than $3 billion in pork spending proposed for Michigan’s 2025-26 Michigan budget. When the budget was enacted last month, most of it had disappeared. The new budget included only $360 million in earmarks, and it also made some significant changes to the earmarking process.

Most of the dollars in the state budget are allocated to various state departments through broad spending categories. But some spending goes to projects or entities that individual lawmakers specifically request. These items, variously called pork projects, earmarks, or legislatively directed spending items, have grown rapidly over the last decade. The 2015-16 fiscal year budget contained just $5.2 million in earmarks for district grants. This had mushroomed to $1.8 billion in the budget for fiscal year 2024-2025.

But this year, something changed.

Though legislators requested $4 billion in earmarks, the signed budget included only $360 million in earmarks, according to James Hohman, director of fiscal policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

What happened? The budget introduced a new procedure for allocating earmarks.

Starting in January 2025, members of the House have publicly reported what they call legislatively directed spending items. The Senate now has its own version, with the first reports being made Sept. 30.

Michigan Capitol Confidential has used many of the House’s disclosure documents this year to tell readers the details of various projects. It will now draw on Senate documents as well to tell members of the public how their representatives are spending their funds.

The Overton Window is shifting against the practice of awarding political favors in a budget that is supposed to benefit all Michigan residents.

Saving you money,

Tim Cavanaugh
Senior Editor