Our Legislative Priorities
Members of the County Road Association use a longstanding grassroots process to identify legislative areas of concern. The following priorities reflect the needs and concerns of county road agencies across Michigan. CRA supports efforts to seek additional federal funding, outside of the Michigan Transportation Fund Act (MTF Act) mandated 25%, for eligible county road agencies with state-designated alternate or emergency routes including but not limited to NHS funds for NHS eligible roads under county road agency jurisdiction. CRA supports legislation to require the MDOT to buy out local federal aid at the highest rate possible increasing the federal fund exchange rate to $1.00 for $1.00, and to increase the minimum total amount available for exchange from the final third year phase-in minimum total of $45 M (FY 2024) to not less than $65 M annually. CRA supports implementation of a workable process by the Michigan Department of Transportation to utilize the innovative fixed price variable scope concept on federal aid projects, to serve an efficiency measure for the local road agency, to provide a significant benefit to the road project with bid savings and to more effectively use taxpayer dollars. CRA supports investment of an additional amount of Michigan’s federal dollars in the local agency bridge program to improve the condition of the system. CRA recommends legislation to amend the MTF Act, to set aside an amount equivalent to at least 25% of all federal bridge funds apportioned to Michigan, for deposit into the Local Agency Bridge Program Fund for county, city and village bridges. Congress is not able to meet its annual obligations to the Highway Trust Fund and continues to require a local road agency match, equivalent to the state DOT match requirements, for federal aid programs. Congress needs to identify a long-term solution to ensure the Highway Trust Fund remains solvent and reduce or eliminate the local agency match requirements. CRA supports legislation by Congress to develop and implement a more stable, long-term Federal Highway Trust Fund solution and reduce or eliminate the requirement for a local match of federal funds. CRA opposes any proposal to use additional unanticipated revenues from the Highway Trust Fund outside of the IIJA formula. CRA supports a pilot project of alternatives to fuel taxes, road funding and legislation that collects revenue in an equitable manner across all of the road user groups. Revenue sources could include a variety of user charges, i.e., fuel taxes (including both gasoline and diesel), vehicle fees, mileage fees, toll roads, development impact fees, general tax revenue, sales tax, public and private partnerships, to include the cost of collection, etc. Since 2002 county road agencies have been supporting and developing road and bridge inventory and condition assessments. CRA supports additional state revenue directly to the Michigan Transportation Asset Management Council (TAMC) to assist in its inventory and condition assessment of infrastructure assets for data into the TAMC data portals. The number of electric vehicles (EVs) joining the fleet of cars, trucks and buses in the state and nationally threatens Michigan’s transportation “user-fee” (state fuel taxes and vehicle registration fees) structure. Specifically, the state’s fuel tax revenue has started to decrease and is likely to decrease more rapidly over time, and will soon make it challenging to maintain and improve the state and local transportation infrastructure. CRA supports the state implementing a means of replacing the revenue expected to be lost as a result of the continued expansion of EVs in the state. The needs of those who depend on the Michigan transportation system continue to grow. In addition, the cost of equipment, material and personnel have continued to increase. County road agencies for decades have been forced to defer capital improvements and maintenance on roads, bridges and culverts, and to make reductions in staffing. Constitutional MTF revenues are flat to decreasing. The 2015 Transportation Funding package, which took effect in 2017, saw gas/diesel/vehicle registration fee increases that made up 50% of the $1.2 B agreed to with the balance coming from an income tax appropriation. County road agencies are concerned that they are facing a “fiscal cliff” in state road funding and uncertainty over the income tax appropriation. CRA supports legislation to convert the appropriations road revenues from income tax to a long-term stable “restricted” or “Constitutional” revenue source. All revenue generated shall be distributed according to the current formula in the MTF Act. Michigan’s 5,868 county-maintained bridges are woefully underfunded and the funding situation has become much more challenged with recent unfunded mandate by the Federal Highway Administration that Michigan complete local bridge load modeling on all local bridges in two years and also expand its State National Bridge Inventory (SNBI) inspection points by 34 new items by 2027. This will require a substantial sum, several million state and federal dollars devoted to an already lacking local bridge funding program. In the FY 2027 call for applications, Michigan’s Local Bridge Advisory Program received 401 applications requesting support for $515 M. CRA supports a legislative approach to secure significantly more funds for the local bridge program and other related local bridge federal/state mandates in the immediate future before Michigan’s local bridge system experiences a catastrophic failure, including sourcing funds from the state’s Moveable Bridge Program. The MTF Act requires that not less than 1% of a local road agency’s MTF revenue shall be expended for construction or improvement of non-motorized transportation services and facilities. CRA recognizes the need to address non-motorized transportation services and facilities. However, other state, federal and local funding sources are currently available and routinely utilized by local road agencies for such non-motorized transportation improvements. In addition, current funding from the MTF is not adequate and additional flexibility is needed to maintain the existing roadway surfaces on the local and primary road systems. CRA supports legislation to allow local road agencies the flexibility to utilize a combination of MTF and other state, federal or local funding sources to satisfy non-motorized expenditures of not less than 1% of the agency’s MTF. CRA believes that the imbalance of road conditions between the state system (substantially “good” to “fair” according to TAMC) and the local road system (substantially “poor” to “fair” according to TAMC) and straight mile differential is reflective of, and a direct result of, the disproportionate distribution of available funding between the systems over a long period of time. In addition to the MTF Act funding formula disparity, further imbalance between the two systems will continue to grow due to the appropriation of other non-traditional funding sources to MDOT. CRA supports adjusting the MTF Act distribution formula by reducing the state share a minimum of 9% and redistributing that percentage to the counties, cities and villages as follows: State-30.1%, counties-43.6% and cities/villages-26.3%. In addition, the $50 M allocated to MDOT for its debt service and the $33 M allocated to the Local Program Fund that currently both come off the top of the MTF, should be eliminated. The $83 M should run through the formula instead. In recent years, the agriculture and silviculture industries and their vehicles and equipment have changed significantly, putting further demands on the road system. CRA supports efforts to seek additional road funds from vehicles utilized by the agriculture and silviculture industries in order to restore, preserve and possibly improve roads utilized by these valuable Michigan industries. Many local agency road projects create minimal impacts on the environment, natural and cultural resources. However, these low impact projects are required to secure the same clearances as required for major transportation projects in Michigan. CRA supports legislation to streamline the regulatory review requirements to provide exemptions or other criteria to provide efficiencies for advancing minor projects which create minimal impact on the environment, natural and cultural resources. Michigan county road agencies experience at least one significant disaster on county roads every other year that totals $1 M or more in damage to the road and bridge infrastructure. In many of these cases, total damages can exceed the county’s available road improvement budget for years. CRA proposes that the Legislature establish and fund a Transportation Infrastructure Disaster Relief Fund administered by the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) to benefit county and municipal road agencies. CRA proposes utilizing $5 M per year “off the top” of the entire MTF and capping the Relief Fund at $50 M. While a substantial portion of county road agency revenue comes from state and federal sources, it is not a sufficient amount to maintain the level of spending necessary to properly maintain county roads. To encourage townships to participate in road improvement projects, CRA supports input from townships in the selection of mutually funded county projects in their townships consistent with asset management concepts. A 2016 Court of Appeals ruling has upset two decades of case law regarding the precedence of the Government Tort Liability Act and the County Road Law, which have differing requirements for county road agencies defending an injury on the roadway. CRA supports amending current laws to create consistency and clarity in the specificity and timeframe for reporting accidents. CRA supports legislation allowing road agencies to issue permits and to require bonds, deposits and fees or other agreements to recover costs or repair damage to public roads resulting from intensive trucking. CRA supports legislation that will continue to reduce county road agency liability by limiting the definition of improved portion of the highway to the physical structure of the traveled portion of the paved or unpaved roadbed designed for public vehicular travel. It should not include shoulders, curbs, vegetation, trees, utility poles, medians, sidewalks, crosswalks, parking, culverts, guardrails, barriers, traffic control devices, signs, lighting, mailboxes, or other installation or condition located outside of the improved portion of the highway designed for vehicular travel. CRA recognizes the importance of farming in Michigan, although modern equipment and methods are damaging many county roads. CRA supports a study to review the existing implements of Husbandry portion of the Michigan Vehicle Code and the relevant section of the Motor Fuel Tax Act. The current bid thresholds in the County Road Law were set in 2004 and have not kept pace with inflation, whether for road agency day-to-day operations or times of emergencies on the road/bridge network. CRA supports legislation to amend the County Road Law by increasing the competitive bid threshold from $15,000 non-emergency items to $100,000; and increasing the threshold for emergency purchases from $50,000 to $250,000. CRA also supports indexing these thresholds to the annual Consumer Price Index (CPI) increases. County road agencies are limited in performing work with their own staff by a 20-year-old funding threshold that indicates all local projects less than $100,000 must be competitively bid. Also, the road agency’s cost to perform projects more than $100,000 with staff must be at least 6% below MDOT’s statewide bid tabulation. With today’s shortage of roadbuilding contractors and workers, escalting paving prices, minimal MDOT summer maintenance funds, it is time to adjust this threshold. CRA supports legislation that would remove the local force account limit to allow the road agency’s own staff to remain actively engaged on smaller road projects; to keep winter maintenance staff fully employed in their field of expertise throughout the year; to avoid price spikes due to a shortage of roadbuilders to save the taxpayers money, and to more rapidly get new road funding onto Michigan’s crumbling transportation infrastructure. Improvement of Michigan county roads is unnecessarily hindered by outdated, incompatible and very costly requirements for road agencies found in the Michigan Uniform Condemnation Procedures Act (PA 87). CRA seeks to revise this statute to allow public agencies to amend complaints to comply with notice requirements, to shift the burden of the owner’s litigation costs back to the property owner where they resided prior to 1980, and to better organize and clarify the statute. CRA supports legislation to exempt county road agencies from PA 174 of 2013. This is consistent with the exemption of MDOT or the marking of county or intercounty drains by a drain commissioner or drainage board as described in part (9) of Section 460.727 of PA 174. CRA opposes any legislation that would exempt vehicles from meeting legal weight limits on county roads, except for emergency vehicles or a vehicle engaged in an emergency. The Publicly Funded Health Insurance Contribution Act (PA 152) does not include county road commissions, which therefore fall under a “hard cap” limiting the amount the agency can contribute to medical benefit plans, with no “opt out” provision. This “cap” does not represent the true medical benefit increases experienced across the state, particularly in rural Michigan. CRA supports legislative action to amend PA 152 and/or work with the Michigan Department of Treasury to review the formula and hard cap, so that road agencies can be competitive in the employment market. CRA supports legislation to require real property transfers to disclose that the property is located on a seasonal road, and that this road will not be maintained November through April. Michigan’s current seasonal weight restrictions (SWR) statutes require cou nty road agencies to post all weight-restricted roads from determinant points in each county. This information is the opposite of what most heavy haulers want during SWR and posting dozens of pages of closed roads complicates the information industry desires. Heavy haulers want the unrestricted or all-season roads so they can plan their routes. CRA wishes to amend the SWR statute to require that only unrestricted or all-season routes be posted to streamline needed information. CRA supports multi-agency collaboration on road closures and detours, including federal funding for detours and improvements, to best serve the public and avoid unexpected local road deterioration. CRA supports legislation addressing “dead animals” with consideration to assigning the responsibility to the MDNR. The state should provide an ecological disposal system in each county. Local agencies choosing to pick up animals from roadways should be reimbursed from funds other than dedicated transportation revenues. CRA supports legislation to exempt road authorities from paying royalties for materials to be used for road work that are mined from state, county or privately-owned pits with state-owned mineral rights. CRA supports legislation which would grant county road agencies the authority to approve or deny any section of roadway that is proposed for ORV traffic, based on analysis of traffic safety criteria. CRA recommends 25% of ORV fees be distributed to county road agencies that have roads open to ORV use, based on actual miles. CRA supports creation of an interagency task force to identify sources for funding and repairing damaged highway crossings, identify all trail crossings through a statewide permit process, and that funding made available for trail/roadway crossings be shared by county road agencies and MDOT. CRA supports meeting with MDEGLE to develop a new memorandum of understanding regarding treatment of wetlands, including development of a training program on wetland handling, and additional exemptions. CRA supports legislation that allows each county road agency to review all new developments having access to county roads; legislation requiring townships and developers of real estate adjacent to county roads to provide a dedicated right-of-way; and supports state and local efforts to develop effective access management plans for roadways throughout the state. CRA supports the continuation and increased appropriations for TEDF, expanding eligible projects in Category A to include funding for any road improvements that expand Michigan’s Gross Domestic Product. CRA opposes diversions form TEDF.
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