Roads, flood damage repairs, and an investigation could get money sent their way soon.
Every lawmaker in the House and Senate voted in favor of the bill. The big ticket item is roads – 175 million dollars spread out to cities and villages, county road commissions and state road preservation and projects.
Speaker of the House Tom Leonard says the money is greatly needed.
“For the roads, it’s probably been the worst Michigan winter we’ve had in 15 to 20 years when you look at the freeze and the thaw, the freeze and the thaw.
The Attorney General’s office is in charge of the investigation. It’s looking into alleged mishandling of sexual misconduct complaints at the school. The investigation started after multiple women said they reported former MSU sports doctor Larry Nassar for sexual assault, but the school did nothing.
Andrea Bitely is a spokesperson for the Attorney General’s office.
“We will be staying tightly within that budget. There could be some costs that come directly out of the Department of Attorney General but we’ve budgeted this to come in right about a million dollars for the investigation.”
Democrats say it’s not enough. Their amendments to add more money for roads were shot down in the Senate. Jim Ananich is the Democratic leader in the Senate.
“You know we agree we need more money for roads, we just think we need a lot more. And we think budgets are priorities and it’s important to make sure people are safe. So we’re going to keep fighting for that.”
According to the Department of Transportation, it costs an average of 3-point-2 million dollars to reconstruct one lane of one mile of freeway. But non-freeway and rural roads cost less.
The bill also includes 2 million dollars to help with flooding. And 1 million dollars for an Attorney General investigation into Michigan State University’s handling of sexual assault complaints.