(LANSING, MI)–State Rep. Beau LaFave, of Iron Mountain, has termed the first six months of his two-year term as successful, but emphasized he will continue to fight for key issues most affecting Upper Peninsula citizens.
“Once again a responsible budget completed and approved by the governor before the end of June, which improves our investment in education and roads,” LaFave said. “However, we must make strides toward needed jobs training, car insurance reforms, government transparency and Second Amendment rights legislation through the Legislature. off to a strong start, but the progress cannot just stop there.’
Among the key highlights were:
- Improving revenue sharing for locals including $6.2 million (a 2.5 percent increase) for cities, villages and townships and 1 percent across the board for counties.
- Increasing funding to schools with an additional $27 million in per-student funding, and $25 more funding per high school student.
- Allocating $35 million for the Michigan Infrastructure Fund to be used to address the states water, transportation, energy and communications infrastructure.
- Setting record funding for roads, including $450 million for the upcoming budget year, and $1.2 billion annually by 2021.
“These budget-oriented improvements were completely necessary to me to help the students and residents in the Upper Peninsula,” LaFave said. “We cannot grow and improve our communities without the proper state investment”.
LaFave has also supported:
- Opioid abuse legislation to increase access to addiction treatment, give pharmacists the right to refuse to fill a prescription under certain circumstances, require the creation of student curricula regarding the risks of prescription drug abuse and require providers to counsel minors on the risks of opioids when prescribed.
- A government transparency package to create a new Legislative Open Records Act (LORA) and place the executive branch under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to provide for the public inspection of legislative records.
- Bills to allow law-abiding citizens to carry a concealed firearm without a concealed pistol license.
- Merit Curriculum legislation to expand high school graduation requirements to include courses on 21st Century Skills, such as computer coding and statistics, and skilled trades
“We’ve made a few great strides in Lansing for the Upper Peninsula, but obviously Iam going to keep pushing for more common-sense changes,” LaFave said. ” Car insurance costs are out of control, there are still too many job-killing regulations on the books and we must keep looking at making reasonable budget cuts to help the tax-payers.”
(Aaron Harper,WJNR,WOBE,WHTO)
aaronharper22@gmail.com