This week, the House and Senate each had action on the Brownfield/Historic programs. I will seperate this into two parts - 1. credits and 2. appropriations.
Credits - there are none. The House passed the new Corporate Income Tax plan and did not add back Brownfield or Historic credits. Rep. Jim Townsend offered an amendment to insert Brownfield credits into the tax plan, and it failed on a party line vote (Democrats supporting the amendment, Republicans opposed). The amendment to add back the historic credits was also offered and defeated on a party line vote. The bill now goes to the Senate for consideration, where several key Senators have said they may support including credits if the appropriation isn't enough to make the programs continue. Stay tuned...and please contact your Senator if this is important to your community! I expect that the Senate will work on this plan throughout the week and have some solid recommendations soon.
Appropriations - the House and Senate have each passed their budget bills to the other chamber. Both bills reduced the Governor's recommended funding to replace the Brownfield and Historic credits from $50 million to $25 million. The new Business Incubation and Economic Gardening Fund only has $25 million to make up for the old MEGA, Brownfield and Historic tax credits. The Governor's office has indicated that they would like to see that increased and negotiations continnue. We expect that the bills will go to conference committee, where this will all be worked out.
Andy Schor is the Assistant Director of State Affairs for the Michigan Municipal League. Contact him at (517) 908-0300 or by email at aschor@mml.org.
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