The House passed a bill to allow more flexibility in school construction on Wednesday.
The legislation, HB 4603 , would provide that a school building or its additions cannot be constructed or remodeled unless the plans and specifications are prepared by an architect or profession engineer who is licensed in Michigan or an architect or professional engineer working with a design builder.
Currently, school buildings can only be worked on by architects and professional engineers.
The bill passed the House 95-11.
The state is already using the design-build model for other projects around the state, said Rep. Tullio Liberati (D-Allen Park), the bill sponsor.
"This just allows schools to use that type of building to do their projects," he said. "It doesn't mandate it. … It's just another tool and it can save money."
The bill had a substitute coming out of committee that changed some of the definitions in the legislation. That helped bring architects and engineers, who were previously opposed to the legislation, onboard, Liberati said.
Now that the bill has passed the House, it will move to the Senate. Liberati said he expects the legislation to have good support in the other chamber.
A legislative package expanding telemedicine and a bill to offer temporary licensure for speech-language pathologists while they complete clinicals, extending the period of completion by 12 months, were reported to the floor by a Senate committee Wednesday.
Three new map plans for the city of Detroit's House Districts drawn late last week by the Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission could pit two representatives against each other in the Hamtramck area, would rearrange district territory around Birmingham and Royal Oak and significantly carve up the 13th District, currently the focus of a special election.
Nearly two years after it adopted maps for the House, Senate and U.S. House in 2021, the independent commission tasked with redrawing Michigan's political landscape was back at the drawing board Tuesday with a court mandate not to use race as a factor in remedy maps for new Detroit-area districts.
Backlash over the Gotion electric vehicle battery plant was seen at the ballot box in Mecosta County on Tuesday.
A package of bills to make telemedicine services more accessible and expand it for Medicaid and Healthy Michigan program recipients was discussed Thursday by the House Health Policy Committee .
Bills to provide a new structure for K-12 school construction project oversight, which fell just short of passage last term, resurfaced at the House Regulatory Reform Committee to sharply divide construction companies and professionals like architects, engineers and surveyors.
A trio of Senate bills to codify parts of the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act made their first appearance before a House panel Thursday, beginning the committee process in the lower chamber.
Michigan residents should be able to buy their booze with a digital coupon, the House decided on Thursday.