(Community Matters 182) Legislative Update: Could Property Taxes Really be Eliminated?

Rep. Steve Frisbie (R-Battle Creek)  returns to Community Matters for a spring legislative update. From keeping doctors licensed to keeping ambulances on the road, Frisbie discusses why legislative deadlines and court fights in Lansing could turn into real-world shortages, higher costs, and longer wait times for your medical care.   

Frisbie also discusses the idea of eliminating property taxes in Michigan - something recently floated by Speaker Matt Hall.

Episode Resources
Rep. Steve Frisbie House Republicans Website

ABOUT COMMUNITY MATTERS
Former WBCK Morning Show host Richard Piet (2014-2017) returns to host Community Matters, an interview program focused on community leaders and newsmakers in and around Battle Creek. Community Matters is heard Saturdays at 8:00 AM on WBCK-FM (95.3) and anytime at battlecreekpodcast.com.

Community Matters is sponsored by Lakeview Ford Lincoln and produced by Livemic Communications.

Transcript

Welcome And How To Listen

Richard Piet 0:01

I'm Richard Pyatt. This is Community Matters. So visit on Saturdays at 95.3 FM. And that's you're hearing us now. We're glad you do. You can also find us at Battle Creek Podcast.com. And if you go where you get podcasts now, whether it's Apple, Podcast, Spotify, whatever it might be, just search Community Matters. Calhoun County will come up there. You can follow us. I usually say subscribe, but I think the word is follow. Then you'll get a little alert when our new episodes come available. So you can be connected with us that way too. All made possible through the courtesy of Lakeview Ford Lincoln. Representative Steve Frisbee, our representative in the Michigan House, is back with us today. Hello, Steve.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

Good morning. Happy spring, I guess. Yeah, it's starting to feel that way.

Medical Licensure Compact Deadline Drama

Richard Piet 0:54

We've been kind of teetering back and forth a little bit, but I guess we're on our way, so that's good. I was looking around at some of the things that have been going on. I I like to just kind of look at the news summaries and remind myself about what you've been working on. One of the things that made news over the last uh several weeks was this whole medical licensure thing. The compact that was arrived at some years ago to allow a streamlined process for uh medical professionals, doctors to be licensed in Michigan and perhaps other states as well. There was a sunset on that, and it was coming in quick. And uh, I think we ran it up to the deadline, but we managed to get it done. What was your view on all that and your impressions of the process?

SPEAKER_00 1:45

The impressions of the process were not good. Riley Linting took that bill upon in 2025 and early. You know, our health policy committee brought it before us and it passed out. I want to say unanimously. The compact's been in existence for a long time. It allows physicians from other states in good standing, and states monitor their own physicians. If they have a Michigan license, we monitor them, Ohio, whoever. And it allows them to go back and forth as long as they're in good standing and provide services in any state that's part of the compact. There's around 8,000 physicians in Michigan who are part of the compact and aren't necessarily always in Michigan. So we were going to create an instant shortage of primary care and other uh specialty physicians if we didn't get this done. And like I said, we took it up in 2025 early. One of the first things we did is a health policy committee after it was formed. And it sat in the Senate for over a year, and all of a sudden everybody decided and the Senate decided it was a big problem. Yes, it was. It was a problem a year ago, and decided to pass their own bill, and then some wrangling went on of which bill was going to get used. Uh Riley Linting's bill was the one that ultimately passed.

Richard Piet 3:10

And this is the process that often happens, right? You've got a House version and a Senate version, and then there has to be some kind of a compromise done. And sometimes we run into uh Bumpy Road as it relates to that.

SPEAKER_00 3:25

Yeah, and we passed a Senate bill that was sponsored about Harsons Island and their ability to have two downtowns since they're an island away from their normal downtown, so they have two DDAs now. So that affected about 600 people, whereas Riley Linting's bill affected over 10 million people, potentially.

Richard Piet 3:46

This is the risk, right? Sometimes other things get attached, and that's where the rub is.

SPEAKER_00 3:53

Yeah. Especially in divided government. So they finally came together and decided that uh getting something done was better than letting it expire. I wish we could get to the point where we stop doing sunsets or have a better mechanism for tracking sunsets, because often these things become a instant crisis that we have to act upon. Well, yeah. Most of the times it's because the associations of who they affect come to us and say, hey, this bill sunsets in a few months. Can you help us out?

Richard Piet 4:26

Yeah, they're the ones that turn up the heat.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Yes. The state doesn't even necessarily know in the administrative services section, the legislature, that um these things are going to expire until they go look 'em up.

Richard Piet 4:40

Yeah. You know, I I'm reminded of something that Mike Duggan is saying. The candidate for governor, independent. One of the uh supports he's using in his campaign is the two-party system is broke and it's not working. Is this an example of that? What do you think of that?

SPEAKER_00 4:59

I think at times it doesn't work. I think at times it brings clarity to an issue where things get solved even better. So I, you know, we've talked about this before. Everybody thinks we're at each other's throats all the time. Simply not true. And uh we get along for the most part. It's it comes down to the leadership battles of who's gonna pass which bill and who's gonna take credit for it. So it's not as bad as one would like to portray. And I think it result of much of the online presence of people and their keyboard warriors who like to keep it going. And there are people who benefit from this type of rancor and make money off of it by keeping it stirred up.

Richard Piet 5:43

Man, that's a whole other show, I guess, Steve.

SPEAKER_00 5:46

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Richard Piet 5:48

Yeah. All right. Well, it got done, and uh, these 8,000 affected physicians have the ability to practice in Michigan and other states too, if they're so licensed. But uh this cooperation allows this to continue, and so it will if you contemplate what might have happened there, if it had ended, you might get a call from your doctor's office telling you your appointment's canceled and you can't make another one. That was was the risk. Was that true?

SPEAKER_00 6:19

That is true. You know, a lot of these physicians fill in at the medical clinics, the um drive-up clinics that we have in Battle Creek and throughout the state of Michigan, where when you have a sore throat, you go there instead of going to the ER. ER physicians are another one in some specialties. So uh it was gonna be across the board hitting a lot of people, but I think it was gonna hit more people that don't have a primary care physician that rely on these moments with physicians at a clinic.

Richard Piet 6:50

And those are good to have, those kinds of clinics. I'm thinking about like an urgent care kind of deal. I I fell and broke my wrist this winter, like apparently many people did. I posted this on the Battle Creek podcast page, and a few people said, I fell too. You know, and then I started hearing from other people who'd fallen and broken limbs. Man, I hope everybody's uh mended. But I remember thinking, I don't want to go to the ER. I don't want to go anywhere, but if I have to, I'll go somewhere else. And I eventually did, and uh, and it was a good option. I got in quickly, and uh it was nice to do that. So I get your point. All right, so that's uh done. Was there a sunset on it again? You're just talking about these sunsets.

SPEAKER_00 7:32

You know, I'm not positive. Uh I'll have to double check that and let you know.

Property Tax Elimination And Budget Tradeoffs

Richard Piet 7:36

Yeah, interesting. Okay. Something else that uh we've seen a little bit about, it's been a little quiet, but we heard some some news about it more recently was the notion of eliminating property taxes. I think part of the latest push in coverage about that was uh that Speaker Hall talked about eliminating the personal property tax. And people perk up a little bit when they hear things like that. What's your view on that? And do you think it'll go anywhere?

SPEAKER_00 8:04

I don't think it'll actually go. I think we can get it through the House eventually with better details and and all of those things planned out, but I don't think the Senate is going to be willing to take it up. The Senate's already said we want to raise taxes by over$800 million a year, and the House is saying we want to cut taxes. So it's two different paths to to fix a problem, and we have a spending problem, not a revenue problem in Lansing, just like in Washington, D.C. So I don't think it actually will go anywhere, but it'll clearly define which party wants to go in which direction. One wants to tax you more, one wants to let you keep more of your money.

Richard Piet 8:47

Aaron Powell The classic difference of opinion about that, then it returns. So right. So what's the point then in bringing it up? Is it is it simply just to say, look, this is what we think can be done and let it be out there and and folks can decide whether that's good or not?

SPEAKER_00 9:06

Well, I think you know, if we do pass it and it goes to the Senate, there may be enough public pressure to say, hey, I want those thousands of dollars in those cuts in my pocket, not in Lansing. So there's always a chance that they could change their mind and push it through. So you make that offer, you make that attempt, and uh see what happens. But again, it just clearly defines the pathways by which we want to solve a problem.

Richard Piet 9:33

How do the Republicans see making up for that? If we were to eliminate that, how do we m make up the revenue?

SPEAKER_00 9:41

I think it goes back to those that$10 billion that's sitting in work project funds now. And it clearly demonstrates that there is no revenue shortage in Lansing. And better management, better value, better investment of your tax dollars that bring value to every citizen of the state of Michigan is how we want to accomplish this, not by raising taxes.

Richard Piet 10:05

All right. So maybe it'll go to the Senate and it might just sit there and it doesn't go anywhere.

SPEAKER_00 10:12

Yeah, and I think that's gonna be up to the public and the pressure that they exert. And do they want to see it done or don't they? And I think they do. When I talk to people, they're kind of tired of higher taxes, especially property taxes.

Richard Piet 10:25

Aaron Powell Speaking of bills that don't go anywhere, I guess the Supreme Court's gonna listen to this case about these bills that got left behind after the last session and and they didn't get sent to the governor. Uh and it sounds like there's some kind of a legal hair splitting going on about that, some old procedure that says I'm paraphrasing, but if if there's something left over at the end of a session in an odd year, it doesn't carry over to the even year, something like that. What's been the chatter about all that?

SPEAKER_00 10:55

Well, signy die does mean something, isn't it? Especially at the end of a term. So the hundred and second legislature had these bills. They never had them signed and to the governor through then Speaker Joe Tate's office and presented to the governor. So there's nine bills. They left them for us to try to deal with. And at the end of a legislature legislative session, signy die is supposed to mean there's no more activities. You're done. Nothing. And if you haven't accomplished it, that's your problem. So that's our point of view. We were sued by the Senate. That's the first thing that happened when I got Lansing was the Senate suited to move these bills. The governor's been pretty quiet on them. So uh there's a lot of stories of why it happened, how it happened, and all of the mechanics behind it. I wasn't there, I don't know, but I do know that they left them for us to deal with and then present to the governor after Sine died. So I'm not part of the legal team. I don't I don't have privileged all the legal, you know, how we're handling this. We do get updates occasionally from our legal staff, but that's privileged conversations uh between an attorney and the client, of which I'm one of the clients. So we'll see what happens. I think it is gonna go to the Supreme Court and be reviewed, and we'll see what happens.

Richard Piet 12:22

You have a perception that's the general you, not you. The the general you is we have a perception that if something doesn't get done by the end of the session, it's over. And if if somebody is so motivated in the next session to pick up the charge, they will.

SPEAKER_00 12:36

Yeah.

Richard Piet 12:37

Why was this different?

SPEAKER_00 12:39

Well, one of the theories behind it is there was uh actually several billions of dollars in spending that would create long-term future unfunded liabilities uh as part of it. And one of the stories I've heard is that the governor actually didn't want it. So hold back on those. The other story is who knows? Uh they just didn't finish their job, uh, Speaker Joe Tate, and their role and that to get it to the clerk, to get it presented to the governor before a certain time.

EMT Shortages And Ambulance Deserts

Richard Piet 13:12

All right. Well, we'll see what the big court says about it, and uh I'm sure it'll be back in the news again. Yeah. I saw some other things that I thought you would have an interesting uh perspective about since this was your career, your career in emergency response, paramedic, uh, and uh medical aid first responder. There were a couple of stories in the bridge news outlet recently about a personnel shortage for EMTs and what it called ambulance deserts in rural county, rural sections of Michigan. This sounds a little scary when you uh when you think about it.

SPEAKER_00 13:50

It is. It mostly affects the UP and the very northern part of the lower peninsula. There were a lot of uh ambulance services uh as little as ten years ago, and some of them, many of them relied on parpaid or volunteers. The volunteer portions have dried up, people just don't volunteer to do those things anymore. And the funding for them and everything else, all of the uh government oversight and things that they needed to be able to follow uh made it very difficult for these small ambulance services to continue to operate. One of the problems that we've had is the funding. So I say we because after 41 years, it's kind of ingrained in you, but the funding just hasn't kept pace, especially on the Medicaid side. So you know, we've talked about this before and the level that it's reimbursed at. Uh if 72 to 76 percent of your clients uh received a 73% discount every time, you wouldn't be in business for very long. So that's what happens in EMS and healthcare. And EMS's reimbursement is much worse than most healthcare providers.

Richard Piet 15:05

So if I'm in the UP, let's just say, and I dial 911 and I need an ambulance, what's likely to happen?

SPEAKER_00 15:14

One will show up, but it's gonna take a while. And it just keeps getting extended in time because of when w those small groups decide that they just can't do it anymore, they can't rely on three or four people, uh, and they close their doors, then you know, the next one uh is coming from a further distance.

Richard Piet 15:34

So absorbs a further um uh wider territory. Yep. Yeah. Well, it might be easy to listen to this and say, well, that's in the UP, we're in Calend County, but guess what? A lot of us go visiting, go a weekend up to the UP, and we might need emergency response.

SPEAKER_00 15:54

Yep, yep. And even in areas where there are full-time professional EMTs and paramedics, there's less of them. There's still a shortage across the nation. So the response times have been extended uh even in heavily populated areas because there's just not as many resources.

Richard Piet 16:14

We know that here in Calhoun County, for example, there's been, I think, a concerted effort to try and uh get new personnel. I think it's KCC, right, that has a program that's been uh uh working to attract individuals to this profession. What's your view on that? Are we making inroads?

SPEAKER_00 16:34

They are. KCC has been outstanding in their EMS department. A guy named Chad Dolski started that back in the 80s. I actually taught for him as an adjunct faculty for 23 years. There's just a whole group of dedicated staff there, and KCC has recognized that there's a need and continues to put resources into that and produce EMTs and paramedics at a really good level. So they come from all over Southwest Michigan and uh even central part of Michigan to go to KCC. It's such a great program. So very appreciative of what they do and hope they can continue to meet that.

Richard Piet 17:13

And just to be clear, we do have rural sections of Calhoun County. Uh we're not like the UP. We have we have coverage. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 17:21

And you know, Marshall's still there, there's still an ambulance in Albion. Battle Creek has plenty of ambulances, not as many as they used to, just because of the cost of doing business has greatly outseed the pace of revenue.

Budget Transparency And Local Updates

Richard Piet 17:34

Well, uh, we presume that the need for emergency response in this way is not going to go away, so this will be a problem to be sorted out in the future. Yeah. It will. All right. As you go back to session, what uh what's on your mind looking ahead?

SPEAKER_00 17:51

I think it's the budget. And you know, we have a goal of having the budget passed and and available by July 1st. Uh you know, we talked about this last time. We laid the framework and it's still in place. It was passed into law about the legislative directed spending has to be uh gone through a process, it has to be on the website for 45 days, it has to receive a committee hearing, and a legislator has to put their name on it and defend it of what the public need is uh in the process. So it we cut legislative directed spending by 82 percent last year. So I I think that's a good thing. It helps bring party uh good uh spending habits in Lansing and eliminate a lot of pork spending that people don't necessarily want to defend when it's such a public event.

Richard Piet 18:41

And uh, we're not talking about the ham dinner on Sunday that is so popular on Easter, we're talking about the other kind of pork. Absolutely. Yeah. All right, uh, there you are. And you uh certainly will uh be having uh in-district appearances, uh coffee hours, and things that you typically do, and you announce those.

SPEAKER_00 19:03

Yep, they're on my website, they're on my Facebook page.

Richard Piet 19:07

Yeah, follow the uh social media and website for uh Representative Steve Frisbee. You'll stay in touch on those dates as they come available. All right, Steve. Until next time. Always a pleasure. Thanks, Richard. Thank you. Representative Steve Frisbee here on Community Matters.