This article originally appeared in WILX. Read more here.
On Wednesday, Governor Gretchen Whitmer gave her seventh State of the State address. Her speech touched on topics like tech, education, housing, and also roads.
Governor Whitmer says rebuilding the roads in Michigan is essential.
“We need safe roads to go to work, drop our kids off at school, and run errands. Businesses need a solid transportation network to ship products and ensure their employees can get to work safely,” she said.
However, Michigan roads are “facing a serious funding cliff,” according to Governor Whitmer. She says some construction companies are expecting layoffs due to uncertainty.
House Republican Sarah Lightner says even though the state faces funding problems she thinks they can find the money in the existing budget.
“This is where it comes from, where we prioritize our spending. As you saw from her proposals, there’s tax increases in the budget this year. I would continue to argue we don’t need those, we don’t need to do that. That we just need to look at our programs…what’s a service that we consider essential? You know, things like that. Get back to the basics.”
These funding drop-offs are coming from two programs that will expire at the end of 2026, the Rebuilding Michigan project and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
“In 2020, Governor Whitmer put out a $ 3.5 Billion bonding for our roads over a five year period. In that same year, congress passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which brought in about $400 million more annually for our roads, but also was only for five years,” said Lance Binoniemi, Vice President of the Michigan Infrastructure and Transportation Association.
This could leave Michigan facing the “funding cliff” Governor Whitmer mentioned.