Legislators talk education at Bay College
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ESCANABA -- Topics including funding for higher education in Michigan and the potential remodeling of Bay College's Catherine Bonifas Building were discussed by state and federal legislators and members of the Bay College Board of Trustees during a luncheon and special board meeting at the college Friday.
U.S. Rep. Jack Bergman, State Sen. Ed McBroom, State Rep. Beau LaFave and State Rep. Greg Markkanen were in attendance at the luncheon. Staff members for Bergman, Sen. Debbie Stabenow and Sen. Gary Peters were also present.
During the luncheon, Bay College President Laura Coleman gave legislators an update on a capital outlay the college is seeking from the state.
"From the state level, we have some really good news: our project that we had put in for capital outlay, the Catherine Bonifas Building, was ranked number one," she said.
Later, she noted the college could receive about $1 million in funding through the outlay. According to Coleman, this would fund a remodeling project with the goals of making the Catherine Bonifas Building more energy-efficient, making the building more ADA-compliant and allowing Bay to adjust the building's layout -- possibly including a dedicated space for the college's early childhood education program.
As the project has not yet been approved for capital outlay funding, Coleman encouraged the legislators in attendance Friday to push for the project's approval.
"We just really need you guys to work really, really, really hard to get us that money," she said.
Coleman also spoke about state funding for Michigan colleges Friday. She said Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has called for a three percent increase in funding for higher education in her state budget proposal -- an increase that would have a significant positive impact on Bay if approved.
"That'd be the biggest raise we've gotten in ages. We've been getting either flat or maybe one percent, and so a three percent raise would make a huge difference for us," she said.
The increase -- among other initiatives proposed by Whitmer, including road repair -- would be supported by an increase in the state's fuel tax by 45 cents per gallon. McBroom said he was not in favor of the fuel tax increase, citing other recent boosts to road spending in Michigan.
"(I'm) not exactly like, 'oh, let's just give them some more money,'" he said.
LaFave said he was against the fact some funds raised by the increased fuel tax would be used for purposes other than road repair.
"What we're not going to do is tell the citizens of Michigan we're going to fix the roads by being the highest gas tax in the nation and then turn around and give half that money to other good causes," he said.
Coleman said she would be OK with Whitmer's proposed fuel tax increase not becoming a reality if another way of supporting the proposed higher education funding increase was found.
Ongoing legislative efforts related to the "dark store" tax theory were discussed during the luncheon, as well. LaFave said he and McBroom have introduced bills designed to make the Michigan Tax Tribunal's decisions on property tax assessments more transparent and prevent big-box stores from using self-imposed deed restrictions to lower their taxes. He also said Markkanen and State Rep. Sara Cambensy were the lead co-sponsors on the legislation in the House.
"It's going to help the communities raise a lot of money locally that they should have been getting all along," he said.
Bay College Board of Trustees Member Stephen Davis pointed out the topics of capital outlay funding, state funding for higher education and dark store legislation focus on the same theme -- the importance of providing financial support for higher education. He noted the support is critical because Bay and other colleges educate people who will go on to become workers and taxpayers.
"For the three legislators we have here from the State of Michigan, let me reduce this down to a bumper sticker – feed the need," he said.
Other topics spoken about at the luncheon included work towards reauthorizing and potentially making budget cuts to the Higher Education Act and President Donald Trump's proposed elimination of student loan debt forgiveness and work study funding.
After the luncheon, Markkanen said he felt it was a valuable event.
"It's important – vitally important to get the education community together with state and federal legislators to talk about the issues that are critical to the (U.P.)," he said.