Mark Sanchez: Basically, it means there's a funding mechanism to generate some funding to help finance these two big projects, the Acrisure Amphitheater along the riverfront and the soccer stadium along the freeway just on the west side of downtown. This is a proposal that went on the ballot yesterday in the primary election. It was supported by 54% of the voters in the primary yesterday. Basically, would allow the Kent County Board of Commissioners to increase the county's excise tax on hotel and motel rooms from the present 5% up to 8%. And that will generate about $8 million a year. That's on top of the $15 million generated annually from the existing tax. And that will go into the pipeline to help fund these two big projects. And now it's up to the Kent County Board of Commissioners to decide whether to actually implement this higher tax and they have to vote on that. And there's a big anticipation that the commissioners will approve it, will raise that room tax and that it will go into effect January 1. And the story we posted this morning by Kate Carlson, my coworker here at Crain’s Grand Rapids, it's the director at Grand Action 2.0 that's behind this project, just calls it a huge step forward. Reaching that ultimate goal to complete these two projects and generate that type of benefit for the community that they envision and adding to those amenities around downtown.
Patrick Center: But this also then provides funding for future projects.
Mark Sanchez: Yeah, there's a talk about an aquarium somewhere in town. That's a project that's, boy, I've heard that talked about for a long time and it's finally surfaced again and you're hearing talk about that kind of in the early planning stages.
Patrick Center: And also, voters approved Ready by Five.
Mark Sanchez: Yeah, this is a millage first enacted six years ago. It funds basically early childhood services in Kent County. It does not, does not, subsidize directly childcare services, but it supports learning and education and a lot of programs that some of these organizations around Kent County that help early childhood. It's a quarter mill levy. That's now been renewed for six years. It passed by about a 59%-41% margin. Fairly, fairly comfortable margin. It's going to generate about $8.8 million in the first year. And this is again, going to really support a lot of the early childhood development programs around Kent County. And it was backed strongly by some of the business groups in town, especially the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce, which really views this as a long-term kind of workforce development mechanism tool to start, you know, get, get those little kids when they're young and get them starting prepared for a development as they get ready for school, go to school and then ultimately, many years down the line, are that future workforce for West Michigan.
Patrick Center: The Michigan Supreme Court ruled last week on a couple of issues impacting not only the business community, but employees.
Mark Sanchez: Yeah, and this is a big, big deal. If you are an employer, you really want to pay attention to this and have your HR folks start working on this now. There are two prongs to this. First, let's go back to 2018. There was a petition drive by a group that showed up here in Michigan to raise the minimum wage. To increase what employers must provide in paid sick time, and to get rid of tipped wages, eliminate that here in Michigan. They gathered petition signatures, submitted those to the legislature, and under the state constitution, the legislature can either put the proposal straight to the ballot or adopted outright. That's what the legislature decided to do in 2018, adopted it, but there are a lot of folks, especially the Republicans in Lansing and business groups, that didn't like how this thing was worded. So, the legislature did what's called an adopt-and-amend strategy that's been used times before, adopted the proposal, and then immediately amended it. What the state Supreme Court said last week is that was unconstitutional. The legislature cannot make that amendment in the same legislative session. What does all this mean? It means that the Supreme Court and the state put that law back into effect. Remember the legislature adopted this at first, then amended it. The state Supreme Court basically wiped away that amendment and put the law into effect as written. So, this is going to affect minimum wages in the state, which are presently $10.33 an hour. Tipped workers make $3.93 an hour. That's 38% of the hourly minimum wage. And then of course they make that up with tips. Unless the legislature goes back and makes some changes, the Supreme Court ruling will increase tipped wages to 48% by 2025, 60%, 2026, 70%, 80%, and then ultimately be eliminated in 2029. Minimum wage will increase to $10.56 January 1, and then $12 an hour later, and then eventually to $13 an hour in future years. And the exact figure will depend on the state treasurer’s adjusting for inflation between 2019 and 2024. In a story my coworker, Abigail Poirier, did last week on this, talked to a lot of restaurant owners and operators and they really, really don't like this. One used the term that this is going to be Armageddon for a lot of operators. It's going to significantly raise their costs. Restaurants work on very thin operating margins. And so, this is coming unless the legislature decides to make some changes to it, which I have no doubt it will be proposed, but it will be dependent on whether the Democrats and the legislature go along with it and certainly whether the governor goes along with it. So, and that's just one prong of this ruling. The other part of it was affecting paid sick time. And that's changing as well. What you'll see is employers with fewer than 50 workers will no longer be exempt from having to provide paid sick time. The law will cover all employers with at least one employee, except for the federal government, of course, and two employers will have to offer 72 hours of paid medical leave. That's eight days instead of the existing 40 hours. So that's an increase. And then employers with 10 or fewer workers will have to offer up to 40 hours of paid sick leave and that's up from 32 hours. So that's another burden in cost and talking to folks, a couple of stories, Crain's Grand Rapids and our sister publication in Detroit have done. You know, the business groups aren't really big on that and they think it's not only increased cost and an increased burden, but it's an increased administrative burden to now track all of that instead of, you know, with a lot of employers, they just pool all that paid time off, sick leave, vacation time into one pool. Now they have to separate that back and track it a little better.
Patrick Center: Crain’s Grand Rapids Business Senior Writer, Mark Sanchez, thank you so much.
Mark Sanchez: Thank you, Patrick.